Barney, the HECU & the Black Mesa Incident
by JbearInChief
Summary: Without revealing too much - this time, Barney gets the girl! Barney meets an unusual woman, and is soon captivated by her. But what happens when a science experiment goes awry and they are forced to fight for their lives? Pleez Read & Review- NEW UPDATE
1. The Meeting

****DISCLAIMER!** I am a journalist used to writing non-fiction articles and feature stories. Fiction isn't really my forte, but I haven't written anything in so long so I decided to write a story about my favorite game- half-life! I came up with the idea for a love interest for Barney Calhoun after playing half-life 2 and seeing that Alyx is a love interest for Gordon----I feel that Barney should get a girl, too! : ) **

**Like I said, fiction isn't my strong suit, so be gentle : ) hahahaha and the layout is very newspaper-like (lots of spacing and shorter paragraphs) which I find easier to read, so I hope you enjoy!**

Welcome to Black Mesa

Today was an exceptionally boring day at the Black Mesa Research Facility. Barney Calhoun was stationed at the monitors watching the sector 8 living quarters- not particularly exciting, not even worthy of bringing his trusty pistol. To Barney, it was a made-up position to make sure the people in the living quarters were able to get into their dormitories- which had been a huge problem lately because of frequent system malfunctions, power outages, and general chaos erupting around the facility.

Yes, it was a boring day- which he passed by playing a hand-held video game. He felt in a rut lately, and took the boring job today because he didn't feel like running around the facility putting out fires and administering first-aid to zealous scientists who push their equipment to the breaking point- or, rather, the exploding point. He had been bored out of his skull all week- his drinking buddy Gordon Freeman along with his other scientist friends had all been busy day and night with weird, top-secret experiments, leaving Barney feeling annoyed and dejected with the secrecy.

Barney looked at his watch and sighed, he had an hour left before the end of his shift. He was about to duck out early when suddenly he heard the *click* *click* *click* of what sounded like women's heels coming down the hall. He looked up just to see the figure rounding the corner. She was a woman, indeed. She didn't seem exceptionally tall, Barney guessed that she was only about 5'7 or 5'8 out of heels, but she had commanding features. She had athletic, toned arms and strong calves that were visible underneath a blue v-neck blouse and black pencil skirt. She had deep brown eyes, full pink lips, and a cute sloped nose. She had long, silky brown hair that dropped down past her shoulders, framing her face lightly. She walked up to the desk, smiling in a shy manner.

"ca…. Can I help you?" Barney choked, clearing his throat.

"Hi," the woman said with a slight laugh, "you're gonna think I'm an idiot. See, I'm Jenna Brandenburgh, the HECU scientist assigned to sectors C and E..."

Barney stared at her, confused.

"Hmm… you have no clue who I am. It's ok. I'm the marine with the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit assigned to research here. I have retinal and handprint clearance, and was assigned to a dorm, but the paper with my dorm assignment was in my bags, which were taken to my room so I'm pretty much lost. Is there any way you can help me?"

Barney had to restrain himself hard from almost dropping his jaw. _A marine?!? _He thought to himself. She was fit, but still not that tall. And the skirt and blouse didn't exactly scream "grunt".

"Uhh, yea. I should be able to look it up. Just look into the retinal scanner right here and try not to blink" he said motioning to the scanner on the wall.

She looked into the scanner and instantly, her personal profile popped up on the computer in front of him:

Jenna Brandenburgh

Female, age 28

Education: PhD, Military Post-Secondary Education program- Theoretical physics

Position: Research and Development Scientist

Assignment: sector C and sector E levels 2-3

Clearance: Level 4

Housing assignment: Area 8 topside dormitory unit 145

Administrative sponsor: US Military- Hazardous Environment Combat Unit

"Alright," Barney said, "You're in living area 8, number 145. That's actually right around the corner from my own. I was just about to leave and head back home. I can walk you there, if you would like?"

"Ya. That would be great," Jenna said.

Barney grabbed his hand-held game, stuffed it in his pocket while turning off the computer on the desk and headed down to hall. Jenna followed.

"So I never caught your name-What it is?" Jenna said

"Oh, it's Barney. Barney Calhoun." Barney said, offering her a slightly hesitant hand.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Calhoun," she said taking his hand in hers and giving it a quick shake.

"So, you're a marine?" Barney said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously

"Yep. Eleven years and counting," Jenna replied, "I graduated high school at age 17 so I was considered eligible for enlistment as an emancipated minor."

"So what are you doing here? Is the government declaring war on all of the crazy scientists?" Barney said with an almost hopeful smile.

Jenna gave a quick laugh, "No, they are getting their use out of me in inactive duty. I got my knee practically blown off about a month and a half ago during a firefight. I was covering someone and stopped moving. Coulda been worse, I guess. Anyways, I had reconstructive surgery done, but I'll take about 12 months to get even close to combat-ready mode. Since I can't do missions, they assigned me to this place to develop some new weapons since I have a PhD in physics and have a lot of special weapons development experience in the marines. I wanted to just do the research from my base in Arizona, but they have a special interest in this place, for some reason."

"So what did you do in the marines?" Barney asked.

"I spent the first 4 years training, mostly. That's when I did a brunt of my college work. I finished my PhD work in only about 7 years because 4 of it consisted only of eat, train, study, sleep. After the first four years of training, I specialized in precision tactical support--- I was a sniper," said Jenna, noticing the confused look on Barney's face, "I kinda had an advantage because I'm shorter than the guys, so I could squeeze into tight places and take out my targets with discretion."

Suddenly, as they were proceeding towards another corner, a lab-coat clad scientist rounded the corner in a fury, knocking into Barney's shoulder.

"Sorry, sir," said Barney.

"WATCH IT," the scientist barked, "WHY DON'T YOU GO BACK TO GAURDING SOME DONUTS AND GET OUT OF THE WAY OF REAL EMPLOYEES!"

"Ok, sir. Can do" mumbled Barney, trying to sound nice while secretly dreaming about the scientist spontaneously catching fire.

The scientist stormed off. Jenna watched him march down the hall, then whirled around to her guide, "What was that?!? Why didn't you say something to him?" She half demanded.

"Whatever," Barney said with a sigh, "most of the scientists are jackasses to us security guards. I think they got their PhD's in belittling security guards," he said with a slight saddened smile.

"Man, you are a lot more patient than I am," said Jenna, shaking her head, "if I were you, I probably would have pistol whipped him and gotten tossed on my ass."

Shortly after, another figure came walking down the hall, but this one was different. The man looked much more disheveled than the previous scientist. He had thick, black glasses over sharp green eyes; a brownish red goatee that looked kind of unkempt; and a wrinkled lab coat that had a coffee stain on one side and what looked like tomato sauce on the other side. Also unlike the previous scientist, he actually smiled as he approached.

"Don't you owe me a beer, Barney?" the man said, "I'm going to start charging you interest. That would be, what? Like 12 beers by now?"

"You can't retroactively charge interest, Gordon!" said Barney with a large smile, "besides, if I charged you interest on all of the beers you owe me for beating you in the vents, I would be a very happy, drunk man by now."

"Ya, but who won on Thursday? I finally beat your coffee-swilling ass. You should lay off the donuts, buddy. You're getting sluggish."

"ha ha ha, very funny. You beat me when I was hung over. Let's not start polishing an Olympic gold medal quite yet."

The Gordon guy gave a smile and finally said "Well, I gotta go. I'll collect later. Try not to scare the newbie" he added, nodding in Jenna's direction.

Barney blushed. They continued on, with Barney filling Jenna in about the surrounding living areas. Jenna was surprised at the amenities offered in this area: pools, athletic facilities, cafeterias, Laundromats, arcades, even a bar. They finally arrived at number 145.

"Here's your room," Barney said, gesturing towards the door. "I'm number 167, right around the corner there and down a little. If you need anything, feel free to knock."

"Sure, thanks for helping me out, Mr. Calhoun" said Jenna, smiling.

"Uhm, you can just call me Ba… Barney," he said, rubbing his neck again.

"Alright, I'll see you later, then." She opened the door with the scanner, walked in and closed the door behind her.


	2. A Little Excitement

A week passed with no more hot marine scientists. Barney was assigned to sector C test labs, where Gordon was working lately. Every morning, him and Gordon traded shots, usually about Gordon being late. Today Barney had been stationed at the front desk. After a morning of nothing beyond verbal sparring with Gordon Freeman, an alarm suddenly blared in Barney's ear.

"Warning, fire detected in testing room 4-a. Disaster response personnel please respond."

"GREAT!" Barney thought to himself. "What NOW?"

He ran down the hall, grabbing a fire extinguisher off the wall on the way. As he approached a large *BOOM* erupted in the air, followed by a loud "ahhhh!" as he saw Jenna Brandenburgh thrown through the air like a rag doll. She came down with a large *thud*.

She got up and limped back into the room with Barney running after her. The fire had been reduced to a small pile of smoldering papers. There was a large hole in the ground where the explosion must have come from. Barney put out the small hotspots and looked at Jenna, who had black ash on her face and a large gash on her forehead. She looked clearly aggravated.

"Kind of an awkward second meeting, huh Jenna?" Barney said, trying to force her to smile.

"This is ridiculous! This place will be the death of me, I swear! If one more thing explodes in my face, I'm deserting!" she said, wiping debris off her shoulders.

"What happened?" Barney asked

"Chemical explosion! They made me come up here to these wannabe test rooms get computer analysis on the tao cannon, but the process just made it go off on its own! I tried to run, but it was so powerful that it tossed me clear through the window!"

She was right. The room was a complete loss. Barney was appalled that anyone could survive the blast, which even took out some large chunks of the concrete walls. He looked to investigate and saw that she was wearing a thick vest that looked like something from her marine days.

"Is that what kept you alive?" he said, pointing at the vest.

"Barely! Thank god for my PCV!" she exclaimed.

"PCV?"

"The Powered Combat Vest." She said, regaining her composure, "It's an electrically powered Kevlar vests specially made to protect us from hazardous environments, gunfire, pretty much everything…. Apparently even science experiments gone awry."

Jenna was barely finished with her sentence when Dr. Breen, the Black Mesa administrator came running down the hall, red-faced and extremely agitated.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE?!? CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF SPACE AND EQUIPMENT HAVE BEEN REDUCED TO ASH?"

"Because I wanted to spare you the effort of cleaning the windows," Jenna said, trying to make light of the situation, "They never get perfectly spotless." she finished, with a slight shrug.

Breen turned to her, "YOU!" He yelled, "YOU MARINES THINK YOU CAN JUST COME IN, GUNS BLAZING AND BLOW EVERYTHING TO SMITHERINES! YOU ARE AN EMBARASSMENT TO THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORP AND THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY! WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR PhD? CLOWN COLLEGE?!?"

Jenna suddenly got very annoyed, "LOOK, PAL! I DIDN'T ASK TO BE SENT DOWN HERE TODAY! I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON THESE STUPID SECTOR C COMPUTERS ALL MORNING JUST TO HAVE THE GUN BLOW UP IN MY FACE RIGHT BEFORE I WAS ABLE TO COLLECT THE REPORT! I WAS PERFECTLY CONTENT WITH HAVING THINGS EXPLOSDE IN MY FACE DOWN IN SECTOR E WHERE THE EQUIPMENT ACTUALLY WORKS! YOU ORDERED ME UP HERE TO WORK ON YOUR FAULTY EQUIPMENT THAT MALFUNCTIONS 80% OF THE TIME!"

Dr. Breen breathed heavily, looking like he was about to explode, "This is completely obscene. I'm going to see to it that you are transferred out of here. Before you know it, you'll be back at some military base scrubbing the floors!"

"It would be better than the half-assed operation you're running here, SIR" Jenna retorted with deep disdain.

Dr. Breen turned and marched away. Jenna marched in the opposite direction towards the locker rooms to clean off the ash and blood. Barney Calhoun just stood there, mouth open in awe.

When lunchtime came around, Jenna slouched off to the main dining hall. She dragged her feet along the way, knowing she had a long night ahead of her of repairing the damage her PCV took. When she rounded the corner, the dining all erupted in applause, almost causing Jenna to jump out of her skin.

She looked up and saw Barney Calhoun standing on a table, "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! HERE IN OUR PRESENSE IS THE ONE AND ONLY JENNA BROTHERON!" He yelled, trailed by more applause. "NOT EVEN AN HOUR AGO, SHE CAME FACE TO FACE WITH _DR BREEN_ *the crowd shuddered*, TOLD HIM OFF TO HIS WEASLEY, GROSSLY BEARDED FACE (NO OFFENSE, GORDON), AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE! SHOULD THERE EVER BE A BLACK MESA REVOLUTION, _SHE _WILL BE OUR LEADER; OUR SHEPHERD; OUR MESSIAH" Jenna gave him an incredulous look. "Or whatever…" Barney finished sheepishly.

The hall burst into applause again. As Jenna tried to make her way to Barney and Gordon Freeman's table, scientists all over came up to shake her hand and pat her on the back (to which she winced because she had landed on it hard after the tao cannon accident). When she finally made it to the table, she slumped down in the seat and let out a huge sigh.

Eli Vance, his wife Azian, and Isaac Kleiner, three other scientists Jenna met a few days ago while working joined Barney, Jenna and Gordon at the table. Eli, a black man in his mid 40's was beaming at Jenna, "So you're the one," he said.

"I don't know what everyone is so excited about," said Jenna, getting slightly exasperated.

"You're the only person who has ever had the courage to tell off Dr. Breen," said Azian Vance, a woman in her late 30's with soft white skin and contrasting jet black hair.

"No one in this facility really likes him," Eli told Jenna. "Ever since he took over this place has been going to hell. Everything is malfunctioning; all of the experiments are resulting in disaster. Your experiment is just the latest in a huge string of disaster experiments. You and Gordon don't really know how bad it is, because you guys are fairly new, but this has been going on for years and most of the employees are tired of Breen's mismanagement."

"Well, I probably shouldn't have snapped," said Jenna, looking down at the table, "Only here a week and I have already made bad with the boss. Hopefully I don't have to run into him for the next 12 months."

One week later

Jenna raced down the hall, dodging scientists and security personnel and weaving through hallways and corridors. The tram ride up to sector C had taken forever and she didn't want to miss out on the coming event. She had heard legendary tales of Barney and Gordon's vent races to get Dr. Kleiner's keys out of his sector C office, but since she had arrived at Black Mesa two weeks ago, Kleiner had been annoyingly diligent about not locking himself out. This time the stakes were high: the loser would have to buy the victor a full case of beer.

She rounded the corner and saw that she had arrived just in time. Eli, Azian, their wide-eyed young daughter Alyx, Kleiner and Gina Cross and Collette Green- two more scientists Jenna had become friends with- all looked like they had been there for a while. Barney and Gordon, on the other hand, had reached the office about two seconds before Jenna.

"Hey Jenna! I almost didn't think you would make it," Barney said, smiling brightly at Jenna.

"Yeah… thanks for calling me" Jenna said, slightly panting from her marathon sprint across the entire sector.

"Yep, you got here just in time to watch Gordon lose," said Barney, chuckling.

"We'll see, donut boy. I have been spending lots of extra time in the hazard course," said Gordon.

"Donut boy! Donut boy!" yelled Alyx, jumping up and down while clapping her hands. "Uncle Gordon called Uncle Barney donut boy! Hee hee hee. He's not a donut!"

Barney smiled at the adorable little girl, and then turned his sights to Freeman, "Gordon, the only way you could beat me today is if you had spent a month in the hazard course, my leg was broken, and I had suddenly been stricken with the plague."

"Ha. Ha. HA" said Gordon. He pretended not to care but he really wanted nothing more than to give Barney a swift kick in the nuts.

"Gentlemen, could we just get a move on? I have a very important experiment I need to do lest Breen will have my head!" said Kleiner.

"Alright, Doc, keep your lab coat on," said Barney. "Can you count us down, Jenna?"

"Uhh, ok," said Jenna "ready, guys? On your marks, get set….. GO!"

Gordon immediately flopped down on the floor near the vent on the ground. He pried it off and disappeared into it. Barney, however, raced around the corner and out of sight.

The room was silent except for the *thunk* *thunk* *thunk* of grown men crawling through the vent, along with the occasional grunting and random outburst of "dammit."

Suddenly, a voice rang through the vents, "GOR-DON!" Barney said in a sing-song voice, "You'd better pick up the pace! I'm almost there!"

"Shut up, Barney!" came Gordon's voice, clearly annoyed.

Everyone in attendance laughed, even Kleiner couldn't help but smile. Alyx looked up at the vents above her head. When the vents above started bowing slightly, emitting a light dusty cloud as a man passed through them, Alyx started jumping up and down again cheering "THERE THEY GO! GO Barney! GO Gordon! They're coming out soon!!"

The group looked through Kleiner's office window. Suddenly, a vent fell from the roof, followed closely by the black-haired security guard, landing in a crouched position. He straightened up and looked at the spectators; he was slightly dusty but sporting a wide smile. He grabbed the keys and put them in his pocket. Before he unlocked the door to return the keys, he looked up, waiting for his opponent. Suddenly, a large *crack* erupted through the air, a piece of the vent had broken and collapsed onto the floor, and Gordon came tumbling down after, almost landing on top of Barney. Barney jumped out of the way just in time, causing Gordon to land on his back with a loud *thump*

"GEEZ, Gordon!" yelled Barney, "You almost killed me there!"

Gordon jumped up from the floor, looking frantically around the room.

"Looking for these?" said Barney, pulling the keys out of his pocket, dangling them from his finger right in front of Gordon's face.

"DAMMIT!" said Gordon, "How did you do that?"

"I dunno, I'm just that good, I guess," said Barney, laughing as he unlocked Dr. Kleiner's office door. "Here ya go, Doc," he said, handing the keys to Kleiner. "Now, Gordon, you are gonna have to go to the maintenance desk and tell them you broke the vent. And I'll be expecting my case of beer by tonight. And make it a good brand, not the cheap crap!"

Gordon stormed away, fuming. He rounded the corner, and disappeared out of sight.


	3. Hazard Course Hazards

A month and a half later

It was a rare Friday- Jenna didn't have to work Saturday OR Sunday. There were no reports due, no progress check-ups, no work at all for two consecutive days. She was looking forward to a relaxing weekend of rehabilitating her knee and probably hanging out with Barney.

She had been spending a lot of time with Barney in the two months that she had been there. After their work shifts, they usually spent evenings working out in the gym facilities and then hanging out in each other's dorms for a beer and movie.

However, before her long weekend, she wanted to finish the project she had been working on after the tao cannon- the gluon gun, but it was being quite stubborn. Jenna looked down at it, wanting to throw it out of the window for keeping her from her long, glorious weekend.

She took it off her back and walked back to the computer. The calculations were all correct. The physics were within reasonable bounds. It just wasn't working. She looked at it laying on the floor with a slight frown on her face. She picked it up and tried again. Nothing. She set it down once again. Feeling the blood rush to her face, she suddenly gave it a large kick. It started to emit an electrical whine of sorts. She picked it up again and strapped it to her back to try it again. She pulled the trigger but no electromagnetic waves emitted from the gun. It did, however, give another whining sound, so she kept her finger on the trigger until suddenly it shot out a beam of red light with such force, that it knocked Jenna on her back, breaking the gun.

"Great! Another failed weapon!" Jenna thought to herself. "At least this one isn't a total loss. I'll just take it apart and see what's going on inside."

Jenna had only about a 50% efficiency rate with the weapons she was working on: the tao cannon was about done, but with a minor problem on the secondary fire; the gluon gone was close, but she had two completely scrapped ideas during the two months she was there

Suddenly, a voice rang through the weapons testing chamber:

"Doctor Brandenburgh, I need to speak to you in my office immediately," said the voice of Dr. Breen on the intercom, causing Jenna to nearly jump.

"uhhh… yes, sir! I'll be right there." Her heart started to pound. She had been able to avoid Breen since their verbal spar, but now he wanted to see her in his office? What for? Was she being paperworked out of here?

Her stomach turned. She had finally gotten around to liking Black Mesa, or, rather, the people there. She had made some good friends, which she never thought would be possible. When she heard her assignment 2 months ago, she was furious. She didn't want to be with a bunch of boring scientists 24/7. She loved her marine cohorts and didn't want to leave. She never thought she would ever like anyone at Black Mesa, but she met Barney Calhoun and his little gang of misfit scientists and she instantly forgot about her initial hesitation. But now was she being transferred or re-assigned because of her actions?

She got into the tram on the f-line. She hit the button for the administration sector, and the tram lurched to life. The ride took about 6 minutes, but it seemed like forever. When the tram stopped at the platform, she got off and headed for the administrators office. She knocked on the door, knowing that the retinal scanner on the wall wouldn't let her in.

"WHO IS IT? I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR ANY NONSENSE"

"uhhh, sir? It's Jenna."

"oh, come in, then" He said, there was a small *beep* *beep* of Breen entering in a code to unlock the door. It slid open, revealing his large, bare and dull office. Breen was sitting at his desk, staring at papers.

"Dr. Brandenburgh, you are being reassigned and I don't to hear anything about it" said Breen shortly, not even looking up from his paperwork.

Jenna's heart sank. She was out of there. No more Gordon. No more Azian or Eli. No more Kleiner. No more adorable Alyx Vance. No more Collette Green and Gina Cross, who she had just met recently….. and no more Barney. She swallowed hard. She would sorely miss everyone. She would miss seeing Barney in the dorm eating area every morning, she would miss swapping coffee with Barney, or just hanging out….

…… and then it hit her like a cannon shot into her stomach. The light went on. She had to find Barney.

"You will be better served this way," continued Breen, shocking Jenna out of her thoughts. She wanted to choke the life right out of his bearded face.

"You will report to the Lambda complex on Monday. You will be working with Dr. Kleiner and he will give you the details of your future assignments then. I am not at liberty to discuss them with you myself."

She stared at him, shocked. She WASN'T being transferred out, she was just being transferred to another sector.

"OH," said Jenna, "I'm just going to the lambda complex?"

"Did I stutter?" snapped Breen, "You thought you were being taken out of here? No. Apparently your services have garnered the interests of outside forces. I am not the sole person in charge of your fate here, so I cannot remove you unless I want to lose my job. But let it be known, if you have another outburst, massive explosion, if you so much as put ONE HAIR out of line, I will risk my job just to see you removed from this place!"

"Yes, sir" Jenna said, "I understand sir."

Breen finally looked at her, confused at her sudden politeness. "Whatever, leave now so I can return to my work."

And with that, Jenna turned on her heels and half-ran out of the room.

Later that evening

After her meeting with Breen, Jenna had tried to fix the gluon and was actually able to get it to fire consistently. Unfortunately, the electromagnetic beam was very unstable and used up a lot of power. She tried to address these issues, but 8 p.m. finally came around, and she was getting hungry. She decided to give it up for the day, and she packed up her stuff and started to head back to her dorm.

On the way there, she was submersed in her own thoughts. She couldn't believe it. She was in _love _with Barney! She honest to god loved him in a big, epic movie sort of way.

She thought back to all of the times they had hung out. She realized that she had been flirty with him all of the time without even realizing it. She constantly brought him coffee or food, she found any excuse to pass by all of the different areas where he was stationed so she could chat with him, they always hung out in either her dorm or his dorm after their work days were over, she was nauseatingly trying to get his attention. She wanted to kick herself for being so moronic. She was a marine. A SNIPER, no less! She was one of the most hardcore marines in her unit! She was tough, independent, fierce, but all of a sudden, she was acting all girly and annoying over a guy.

"I need to stop this, right now!" she thought to herself, "This is ridiculous! I am 28, he's like, what? 24? He would never go for me. Not to mention, being a hardcore marine sniper with a knack for shotguns isn't probably a turn-on for him. I am an IDIOT!"

She marched back to her dorm room and tried the scanner. It buzzed at her with annoying audacity, refusing to let her in. She sighed, tried it again, but to no avail. She was growing increasingly more annoyed. She tried a third time, and got the same results yet again. She went down to the security guard station, but no one was there. After her stomach gave a painful, hungry lurch, she realized what she had to do if she ever hoped to get back into her own dorm and make some dinner. She walked up to his dorm (number 167) and tentatively knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" came his voice from inside.

"It's…it's me, Jenna. I need your help getting into my room" said Jenna, feeling nervous, as if the very sight of him would cause her to jump on top of him and furiously scream "I love you! Take me NOW!"

The door gave a soft beep and it slid open, revealing Barney, standing there wearing only black sweat pants. His exposed chest sort of shocked Jenna- she had never seen him shirtless before. He had very broad shoulders, muscular arms, and while he didn't have 6-pack abs, his stomach was still very toned. His hips poked out slightly, forming a rigid v leading to his groin. He had black hair across the top of his chest, and a thin line of hair leading down his stomach, past his belly button, down to his groin.

"Oh, uhmm… I…I…I'm sorry!" Jenna said, looking away to avoid staring. "This is a bad time! I'll just… come back another…. Later time" she said turning around.

"Woa, there! I'm ok. It's not a bad time! What's up?" Barney said, laughing at her.

"I, uhm… can't get into my room" Jenna said looking back but not making eye contact.

"hmm…. Let's see what's going on" Barney said as he walked from his room towards Jenna's room. She followed behind him, looking at his toned shoulders and back. She could feel herself blushing furiously, and she tried to think of work stuff to make herself stop blushing. They finally arrived to her dorm, and she tried the scanner again. When it didn't work, he leaned into the scanner and the door beeped to life and sprang open. He went into her room to the other side of the wall, punched something into the security computer, and it gave an obedient *beep**boop*.

"It looks like your assignment was erased. I put you back into the computer, so it should be ok now," Barney told Jenna.

"Ok. Well, thanks for doing this for me," Jenna mumbled.

"Are you okay, Jenna?" Barney asked, "you look at shaky and weird, like a scared puppy. Did I do something to upset you? or…?"

"No, I'm fine. I'm Just kinda reeling. I uhh….had a meeting with Breen. He's re-assigning me to the Lambda labs for something he can't tell me about. It's just bizarre, and he's just an ass to begin with," Jenna said, trying to cover up the real reason for her odd behavior.

"Hmm… well, Breen sucks but a secret assignment sounds kind of cool," said Barney, trying to cheer her up.

"I guess," she responded with a large sigh.

"C'mon! Cheer up!" Barney begged her, "How 'bout this: I challenge you to a match in the hazard course. Whoever completes it the fastest wins. If I win, you have to buy me a beer and stop moping. If _you _win, you can pretend I'm Breen and kick me in the jewels."

Jenna couldn't help but laugh. "Tempting" she said. She really wanted to avoid having to interact with Barney, but it didn't seem like he was going to let her.

"C'mon, C'mon' COME ON!!!" he begged. He walked up to her, grabbed her shoulders and started shaking her back and forth.

"Alright, alright! Leave me alone!" She said, brushing him off but still smiling. "So should I get my PCV?"

"No way, we both should run through it in HEV suits. It'll level the playing field," Barney said, shrugging.

"Uck! Fine!" she said, disgusted that she would have to wear that stupid space suit.

"Alright, meet you down there in 15 minutes." Barney said, sprinting off.

She finally arrived at the hazard course, and Barney was already in a HEV suit. He looked completely ridiculous. No one ever looked good in them, but he looked especially awkward. The suit was very broad, making his head look tiny compared to it. It was meant to have a helmet to balance it out, but he wasn't wearing it so his head just looked small.

Jenna got into the stupid HEV suit herself, putting it on piece by piece. The whole stupid process took 15 minutes on its own. Jenna met back up with Barney at the starting point, right off the lift. Barney took out a stop-watch and handed it to her.

"Count me down," he said, getting into a ready position.

"Alright," she said "ready? Set? GO!"

Barney disappeared through the doors. Jenna went back down the lift to watch from the cameras in the observation room below. She watched Barney's figure dashing madly through the course. He jumped over large pipes, almost tripping over them; he dove underneath the other pipes, almost knocking himself in the head; the whole thing was hilarious. Jenna could not stop laughing.

He reached the armory, grabbed the SMG and headed for the weapons training room. He hit the targets with fair ease, but when it came to the target that he had to launch a grenade at, he misfired the first time, and fell backwards. Jenna winced- it looked like he might have really hurt himself. To Jenna's amazement, he got back up, fired again and hit it, and dashed on, with his right arm, head and neck bleeding and he was running with a slight limp.

Jenna saw that he was clearly pretty hurt, so she ran through the security doors to meet him by the training tram at the end of the course. She stood at the top of the steps and waited. He finally came through the room, wincing in great pain.

"Jesus, Barney! Are you ok?" Jenna said, running over to him.

"I'm a little chewed up, but I'll be okay," he said through slightly gritted teeth.

"A little chewed up? You could have been killed! Thank god for the HEV suit! Come here, there's a med-kit over here," she said, leading him to the kit on the wall.

He walked up to the kit and it injected his arm with whatever magical stuff they used. Jenna didn't know what was in those kits, but they saved her ass on more than one occasion when a weapon blew up in her face. When Barney looked a little bit better, he turned to Jenna and laughed at her worried, pale face.

"Geez, Jen. Don't freak out. It's just some cuts and minor burns. I'm tougher than that." He said.

"This is stupid. It was a horrible idea! I'll take you back to your room," she said, her voice shaking.

"Aww, c'mon! Afraid you'll lose?" Barney said, trying to taont her. She looked at him, annoyed. "Alright, alright! But what's my time? I'm making you come back tomorrow and we'll see if you can beat it."

"10:39" Jenna said, showing him the watch.

"Fine. Let's go." Barney said, allowing Jenna to take his arm and lead him away.

When they finally got back to Barney's room, she helped him get the HEV suit off, and she took hers off as well. When they were down to their regular clothes, she helped him onto the bed; he winced when his slightly burned shoulder hit the mattress.

"Lay slightly on your left side" Jenna said, going to his kitchen to retrieve his first-aid kit. She pulled it out and brought it to his bed-side. She took out a bottle with the Black Mesa logo printed on it. Underneath it read "burn cream." She read the directions, which told her to "apply liberally to burned skin. Repeat every 3 hours. Do not apply to skin with open cuts."

"Take off your shirt" she said, nodding to his shirt.

"You first. It's only fair" Barney said, smiling.

"Fine, look hideously disfigured forever, I don't care" she snapped.

"Okay! Okay! Seesh!" he said, sitting up and slowly pulling off his shirt with his non-burned left arm.

Jenna sighed with relief. The burns looked fairly minor, and the cuts didn't require stitches. He had burns on the right side of his chest and neck. He had some shrapnel cuts on his cheek and neck, she shuddered. She squeezed some of the cream into her hand, and began rubbing it into his chest and neck, avoiding the small shrapnel cuts. He winced every so often, but didn't complain. Suddenly, he grabbed her hand softly with his own and looked into her eyes.

"Sorry, I know it probably stings," Jenna said softly

"Not at all," Barney responded, still holding her hand.

"Well, uhmm… you… you should probably go to sleep," she said, slowly taking her hand away, "Here, take these," she said, handing him two morphine pills out of the med kit, "put them under your tongue and let them slowly dissolve. It'll help with the pain and make you sleepy."

"Yea, sure" he said reluctantly. He put them under his tongue and allowed them to dissolve. He washed it down with some water and settled into the covers.

Jenna got up, packed up the med kit and put it away. She began to inch towards the door.

"Aren't you staying?" He asked, sitting up to look at her.

"I, uh… I was just gonna… uh…yea. Sure" she stuttered.

She walked to a lounge chair and sat down. She pulled the footrest out and tried to settle into it to sleep. It was quite uncomfortable.

"Uhm… you can sleep here," Barney said, motioning to the empty section next to him in the bed, "I don't mind, but I can sleep in the chair if you mind."

"No, I don't mind," she said, even though she was quite nervous. She crawled into the bed next to him, pulling the blankets up over her shoulders.

"Thanks, Jen" Barney said when she settled in, "You're the greatest thing a dumbass like me could ask for."

"You're corny," said Jenna, giving Barney a shy smile, "Just go to sleep."

Three hours later, Jenna woke up with an odd jolt. She realized what time it was, and got up to grab the burn cream. She squeezed a little more into her hand and applied it to Barney's burned skin again. The morphine really kicked in, and he didn't even stir when she touched him. When she finished, she looked at him, her thoughts racing. She stood there, but suddenly Barney began to stir. His eyes opened and he looked up at her.

"Hey… wha.. what's up?" he said with a slight moan.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. I was just… putting on the cream again. Every 3 hours." She said, showing him the bottle.

"So you were using The Force to put it on? The power of your mind?" he said smiling.

"No," Jenna said "I already finished. I was just thinking."

"What's going on, Jenna? You're acting really weird. I'm worried about you. Please just tell me." Barney begged.

"It's nothing. I'll figure it out. It's just adjusting to… I don't know, this whole place, Black Mesa. It's been a pretty tough year for me, that's all. I'll be fine." Jenna said, walking back to the other side of the bed and laying back down again.

Barney rolled over slightly to look at her, trying not to roll directly onto his hurt shoulder, "Are you sure? You can tell me anything, you know that, right?"

"Yes, Barney. Now go to bed," she said, smiling.

"ya know, I'm getting sick of you telling me to go to bed. But I am tired," he said with a large yawn.

He rolled back onto his back, heaved a large sigh and fell asleep.

Jenna dozed off soon after. Another three hours passed before Jenna woke up again. She woke up this time with Barney standing above her grabbing the bottle of cream on the nightstand next to her.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to wake ya. I just wanted to give you a rest and put this on myself." He said grabbing the bottle.

"I don't mind," Jenna said, sitting up. She put her hand out and Barney handed her the bottle. He sat next to her, turning towards her. She rubbed it gently on his chest and neck and blotted it carefully around the shrapnel marks. The burns looked a lot better already; she was amazed at the effectiveness of the cream.

"You need to go to the infirmary when we get up," Jenna said. Barney stared at her, not saying a word.

Jenna's heart began to race. She felt as if Barney's brown eyes were piercing into her soul, revealing her most secret thoughts. She nervously bit her lip and looked away from him gaze. His eyes still rested on her, burning hot into her skin. He touched her arm very lightly with his hand, causing a tingling sensation to race through her arm up to her throat.

Panicked, she quickly slumped back down into the bed. "Goodnight, Barney."

Barney frowned, got up and walked over to his side of the bed. He laid down and fell back asleep.

But Jenna couldn't sleep. She pulled the sheets close to her face. They smelled like him. They had shared some bizarre moments this evening, and Jenna was annoyed and confused. She turned over and faced him. She watched him sleep, watching his chest heave up and down with each breath he took. His mouth had light stubble around it and was open very slightly.

"He knows something's up," she thought to herself. "I need to stop acting awkward. I'll just act normal and whatever happens, happens. I can't avoid him like a two-year old."

She finally drifted off to sleep.

When she woke up the next day, Barney was not sleeping next to her. She got up and walked out of the bedroom into the kitchen- he wasn't there either.

"He must have gone to the infirmary early" she thought to herself.

She put on her shoes and got ready to head out to meet him there. She had to pee, so before heading out to see the infirmary, she decided to use the bathroom first. She touched the button to open it, and it quickly slid open. Unfortunately, the naked security guard on the other side, who was looking himself over in the mirror didn't seem too happy for the surprise visit.

"WHAT THE…. JENNA?!?" Barney said, turning to her and revealing his entire full frontal view.

"OH MY GOD!" Jenna screamed.

She threw her hands over her eyes and turned to run. Blinded by her own hands, she tripped over a shoe lying on the floor. She fell down, bumping her head on the wall before slumping down onto the ground. She sprang up and immediately sprinted out of the dorm, slamming the open button on the front door to get out quicker. She could hear Barney calling after her, but she didn't even look back. She ran around the corner and down the hall to her own dorm, opened it up with the scanner and immediately slammed the close button on the other side, sealing out the rest of the world.

She slid down the wall, landing on the floor in a sitting position. She touched her head, which had a large knot on it. She buried her head in her hands and began wondering if she could be transferred out of the facility after all.

***Update will come soon, I promise!****


	4. The New Assignment

She spent the entire weekend avoiding Barney. He had knocked on her door later on during the day of the little mishap, so she spent most of the weekend out of her dorm and away from any place Barney might be. She spent the weekend running errands and keeping herself busy.

Monday finally came around, and she was to report to the lambda complex that day. In order to avoid Barney, she left extra early, and took the tram to the main dining hall for breakfast instead of eating in the area 8 cafeteria like she normally did. There she saw Gina Cross, another scientist that she had become friends with during her short tenure at Black Mesa.

"Hey Jenna!" Gina said, "I heard you got transferred to the Lambda Complex. Pretty exciting"

"Yea, have you ever been there?" Jenna asked.

"No, can't say that I have, but hopefully one day," she said. "So what brings you here?"

"What do you mean?" Jenna replied.

"Well, I eat breakfast here every day, and have never seen you" Gina said, "So are you just exploring?"

"Actually, I'm kind of avoiding Barney" Jenna admitted, looking down at her breakfast.

"Why? Are you mad at him?" Gina asked, sounding concerned.

"No, it's just that…. Well, long story short, I was in his dorm and accidentally walked in on him in the bathroom… naked!" said Jenna, frowning.

"Ohhh yea! I heard something about that from Gordon," Gina said, looking up trying to remember something, "So, what was it like?" she asked, smiling.

"GINA!" Jenna cried incredulously.

"WHAT? A girl can't wonder?" Gina said, faking a look of offense. "C'mon, just a LITTLE detail. Was it… you know… big?"

"I am SO not answering that question," Jenna said.

"Oh, so it wasn't. Bummer." Gina said.

"No, it _was_" Jenna blurted out.

"Woah! Nice going, Calhoun" said Gina.

"Ugh! This conversation is over!" Jenna said, getting agitated as she buried her head in her hands again.

"Oh, fine," Gina said, defeated, "but can't avoid him forever. You don't want it to be all awkward and weird, do you?"

"ya, You're right," Jenna said while checking her watch. "Well, I'd better go. I don't want to be late. See you later, Gina!"

She rode the train to the central transit center. From there, a security guard made her show ID and scan her eyes in a retinal scanner before giving her access to the "secured access lambda sector transport train, which no other passengers were on. The tram ride was lone and bizarre, going deep underground.

She finally arrived at the main entrance. A security guard verified her identity again before letting her in. The main area had a small sitting area and some vending machines. An elevator with a sign that read "lab access" was next to the sitting area- she could already tell that this was nothing like the rest of the facilities. She rode the elevator down, where she was met by the smiling face of Doctor Kleiner.

"Good morning, Jenna!" said Kleiner enthusiastically, "I see you right on time! Great. I'll show you your office for this area."

"Wait," said Jenna, "I get another office down here?"

"Oh, most certainly yes! The work you will be doing down here is very different than the work you do in the sector E weapons labs or the sector C analysis labs. Thusly, you have an office down here for paperwork, reports and equipment that must never leave the lambda facilities. I not only have an office in sector C, but I have one down here as well. Fortunately, the office I am in down here is a retinal scanner lock so I don't have to worry about losing my keys."

He walked her to an office with a label on the outside that read "J. Brandenburgh." She tried the scanner and, amazingly, it actually opened the door. They both walked into her office.

"Now, let's get started," Kleiner said, "I was informed that the HECU briefed about our teleportation experiments in this complex, correct?"

"well, I knew that Black Mesa did teleportation experiments," Jenna said, "but I didn't know it was the lambda labs."

"Right" continued Kleiner, "Well, I know that you are familiar with short distance teleportation of non-living matter, correct?"

She nodded.

"Well, here is the background file of your assignment, it will be teleportation of living matter- humans, to be precise," he said, handing her a file with a large black mesa logo on it, labeled "TOP SECRET" in large letters. "You will be dealing with teleportation technology, preferably long-distance for military benefit."

She nodded again. She was secretly excited. "FINALLY!" she thought to herself, "Some REAL physics!"

"Well," Kleiner continued, "I have to get going for an experiment. I will be gone for about two hours. If you have any questions, I will be available after that." And with that, he turned and walked out.

Jenna began looking over the thick file. She couldn't believe it. Apparently, Black Mesa scientists had found a border planet, which they called Xen, that had a foreign power source that could act as a cosmic middle man of sorts to sustain long-distance teleportation. She looked at the analysis data of these orange colored crystals. Unfortunately, the samples came out imperfect, unstable and inconclusive.

Jenna's head was buzzing with questions. She wanted to know everything about the new planet, everything about how they discovered the power sources, everything about human teleportation. She was amazed at how casual Dr. Kleiner acted about human teleportation and space travel- Jenna's head was filled with questions, concerns, and conflicts while Kleiner acted as if it were walking to the store.

However, Jenna though of the possible implications of these crystals- she could harness the smaller ones to make a personal teleportation device, or better. Her mind began to race with possibility now. She could get started on the personal teleportation device, even with the imperfect samples and wait for better samples to finish it.

After reading every word of the file, she waited for Kleiner to come back. He took her into a room that had two glowing balls separated by a wall. One was orange and one was green. Kleiner went over the physics and calculations with her, and explained how the crystals were aiding in the teleportation of a human, which they had mastered. The whole thing took hours to fully explain, but Jenna was completely captivated by every bit of information.

When he was done with her lesson, she looked at him with intense interest.

"Can…can I try it?" Jenna asked sheepishly.

"well, yes, I don't see why that would be a problem" Kleiner said. He opened the door to the room with the green ball. Jenna stepped in hesitantly, avoiding the ball like an explosive mine.

"Well, Jenna," Kleiner said, "go ahead, step inside of the portal."

Jenna set one foot in, and then the other. Instantly she began to hear a rushing noise in her ear, and her body began to tense up. Suddenly, the room went black. For the longest three seconds of her life, she saw nothing but black and heard nothing but her own breathing. She felt as if someone was squeezing her entire body, and her breath was very labored. Almost as soon as the blackness came, it was gone, and instead replaced by the orange glow of the exit teleport in the other room.

"WOW!" Jenna gasped. She walked out of the room and saw Dr. Kleiner, standing in the exact same spot, smiling at her.

"You never quite get used to it," Kleiner said. He pulled out the papers that were falling out of an analysis machine printer at a rapid pace and handed the printed calculations to Jenna. "Feel free to look them over, get more acquainted with the physics and calculations of it. You'll need it."

Jenna spent the rest of the day pouring over calculations and physics before finally deciding to head home. She took the same secret train to the central transit station and to her dorm. Even though Jenna had to leave her calculations and papers in her office, her mind was still buzzing with all of the information she took in. She cooked dinner, watched a little bit of TV to unwind, and finally crawled into bed, excited for the next day.

"Finally," she thought to herself, "I'm STOKED to go to work tomorrow!"


	5. Making Amends

A Week Later

An entire week passed in the Lambda Labs in what seemed like one day. Jenna had taken quickly to her work, already starting on a personal teleport device. She used small Xen crystals for teleportation power, and was currently using electricity to power the actual reaction. However, the device was coming out to be much larger than would be reasonable for prolonged personal use. It was a very large device and would be unrealistic to carry around discreetly. It also used a lot of power, requiring the carrier to have to also carry lots of extra power sources. Jenna didn't let these minor setbacks get her down, and she was still very excited to be working on such amazing technology.

The end of the seventh day came, and her and Kleiner rode the elevator to the tram platform together and rode the tram back to the main platform while talking about her experiments (which they probably weren't supposed to, but Jenna couldn't help it). Jenna found it very nice to have a friend on the tram ride to talk to every day, since she was still avoiding Barney. And Jenna liked Kleiner very much- he was like a father figure- he was extraordinary helpful and kind and actually enjoyed Jenna asking questions about their experiments.

They transferred trams and rode up to the main living and dining quarters talking the whole way. Once the tram stopped, Kleiner turned towards the main dining hall, while Jenna started walking towards her dorm.

"Aren't you coming to get dinner?" Kleiner asked.

"Yea, but I'm gonna change first and soak this coat," said Jenna, pointing to the big coffee stain on her lab coat from a lunch-time accident. "I'll catch up with you in about 20 minutes."

Jenna turned towards the hall and began to jog to her dorm. She was awfully hungry and wanted to get back to the dining hall before all of the food was gone. She quickly turned a corner, without looking and carelessly collided hard into another person coming around the opposite side of the corner.

"Oh, gosh! I'm sorry, sir," said Jenna, not seeing who she ran into.

"Sir?" said a familiar voice. She looked up and saw Barney frowning at her.

"Oh, gosh, Barney! Hey! How are you?" Jenna asked, smiling.

"Uhm, I'm fine. Apparently I am completely dispensable to you, though. Not only have you not come by to say hi in over a week, but you have actually been _avoiding _me! You don't even see me when you're almost knocking me on my ass!" Barney said, disdainfully.

"Barney, I'm really sorry! I have been EXTREMELY busy! I haven't gotten a day off in over a week! I'm just burned out!" she pleaded.

"Yea, well I could tell you a thing or two that _I'm _tired with," spat Barney.

"Barney, c'mon! Don't be upset at me, I'm really sorry!" said Jenna

"I just don't care," he said, before storming off.

"Barney!" she screamed down the hall after him, "C'mon! Come back! I'm not gonna chase you down this corridor!"

"Good! Don't!" Barney bellowed back, "Because I'm done chasing you, too."

Jenna stood there, baffled. She didn't know what had just happened. Her normally cheerful security guard companion was now bitter and pissed off. Jenna sulked off into her room, and reheated some of her own left-over food instead of facing Barney in the dining hall.

The next morning, Jenna got up bright and early to do her hair and get dressed up nice and pretty in a skirt and silky blouse and still leave on time. She sneaked behind the security desk in the living quarters, where there was a security guard schedule posted underneath the desk. She saw that Barney was assigned to the sector C front desk, which was amazing luck because she was getting some more crystal samples to analyze in sector C in the morning before going back down to the lambda labs in the afternoon.

Jenna made her way to sector C, grabbing two mochas from the dorm coffee shop on the way. The tram finally stopped at sector C, and the guard stationed at the platform welcomed her and unlocked the tram door. She walked through the large door and looked at Barney sitting at the desk. Before he noticed her, she quickly walked up to the desk and put one of coffees on the desk right in front of him.

"What's this?" he said, knowing that she was there but refusing to look at her.

"It's coffee. It's like a magical potion that western civilized people drink to banish drowsiness and nasty dark circles under their eyes" she said, smiling.

"I'm fully aware of what coffee is, Jenna" said Barney, finally looking at her, "I just don't want your bribes. You can't be a crappy friend and bribe me with coffee so I'll act like nothing is wrong."

"Barney!" said Jenna, getting slightly annoyed, "I said I was sorry, and I meant it! I walked in on you naked, and it was awkward and embarrassing so I avoided you for a week. I'm not proud of it, I feel immature but it has nothing to do with your nakedness or your ego or your manhood-ness or whatever. Now knock it off with the attitude or I'll kick your ass!"

"Fine, but only because you brought coffee." Barney said, taking a swig of the warm coffee.

After a moment of thought, Barney looked up at Jenna and said, "Now, I think that to make things fair, I should be able to see you naked…. It's only fair."

Jenna thought for a second, "Fine," she finally said, "but you only get a one second peek. Because that's all I got."

"Seriously?" said Barney, sounding hopeful.

"Absolutely not" said Jenna laughing.

Barney started to laugh, "You're mean!" he said "C'mon. Just the top?"

"Goodbye, Barney" said Jenna, smiling as she walked away. She knew that he wouldn't be able to resist coffee.


	6. A Sinister and A Strange Discovery

Spring came and went, turning into summer. The desert heat was unbearable, but at least Black Mesa was well ventilated. Since all of the outdoor activity facilities were out of the question, Jenna, Barney, Gordon, Eli, Azian, Kleiner and sometimes Gina Cross and Collette Green spent the hot summer nights in each other's dorms to just hang out and beat the heat.

It was a perfectly average season. Jenna's work was coming along well- her personal teleportation device was working, although it was inconsistent and could only go around the facility.

However, her good feelings about work began to fade as late August came. She had been there five months and could not get the device to work the way she wanted. Jenna decided to skip ahead and try out long distance teleportation with the device, hoping that when she discovered the problems with long distance teleportation, she would be able to shed light on all of the other coordinate problems. She approached Kleiner about the idea one day in the last week of August.

"Well, Jenna" he said, "I am worried that the crystals in the device might have a tendency towards Xen, and you have never been there. It is a very dangerous idea."

"Why?" Jenna asked, "are there alien creatures there?"

"No, of course not!" Kleiner said instantly, "It's….it's…. well it's just a different world. It has different force of gravity, different atmosphere, different everything. If you make one misstep, you could end up floating through space forever."

Jenna was skeptical about Kleiner's stuttering explanation, but pressed on, "Can I get someone to take me, so I can explore around and see how the crystals in the device interact with the native crystals on the planet?"

"I'll see what I can arrange," Kleiner said, "In the meantime, just try to fix the problems with teleportation around the facility."

Jenna spent the next month setting up teleportation ports all around the lambda labs and in areas around the base approved by Dr. Breen. She used Xen crystals to power the different teleportation ports, and, as she suspected, the device would take her to these ports. There was definitely a strange pull between the crystals.

Trying to get away from having to set up a pre-determined end point, she decided to try to teleport near a port, but not in it. She set the coordinates on the device to the room right next to a port. She began to charge the device, but she forgot she was low on power and the device went off on its own when the power was used up. However, it didn't teleport her anywhere, but, instead, it shot out what looked like a portal ball towards the wall. She ran backwards, away from the ball, unable to predict what would happen. It hit the wall and let out what looked like a shockwave. It took a large plant on the ground with it, teleporting it who knew where, but shattered parts of the wall.

"Oh my god!" Jenna gasped to herself, knowing what she had stumbled upon. The port took organic material with it, but destroyed inorganic material. She ran down to Kleiner's office, and ordered him to follow her. She led him to the most open lab, looking around for test subjects. She ran back to Kleiner's lab, grabbing the small tree he had growing from a pot on the floor and a UV lamp above it. She put the plant on the other side of the room, pot included.

"Jenna, what is going on?" Kleiner asked her

"Watch this," she told Kleiner

She put more depleted uranium into the gun for power, and held down the trigger. Right before it was about to teleport her out of the room, she released the trigger, sending out another ball of energy. It hit the wall again, and, once again, took a plant with it.

"Oh my god, you have stumbled upon a third person teleport." Kleiner said, his jaw dropped in awe.

"It was a complete accident, it seems to take only organic, living material and just destroy everything else with a shock wave of sort" Jenna said.

"Well, let's get you some other organic test subjects so you can complete this analysis," Kleiner said.

Within an hour, Jenna office was flooded with cages of test rats, ranging in size. Every time she put the cage in the middle of the test room and fired the gun at it, it took the rats but shattered the cage into tiny bits. Jenna looked at the analysis reports from the observation beams in the test room, and it took the rats to somewhere in Xen, Jenna guessed.

Jenna wanted to try something bigger, and since Dr. Breen wasn't around to experiment on, she tried a larger cage with more test rats. She aimed at the gun and pulled the trigger, but just as she was about to release it, the gun suddenly gave a strange jerk, causing her to flinch. The beam missed the cart, hitting the floor slightly to the right of it. It sent out a shockwave and hit the cage, causing all of the rats inside to sort of explode in a hail of bone, meat and blood. Jenna stood there, awe struck and very disgusted.

"What happened in here?" came Kleiner's voice from the doorway.

"It…I…I missed, and it….blew the rats to smithereens!" Jenna said, shocked at her own grotesque discovery.

"Well, it looks like you have found a more sinister use for that device. If you shoot it near an enemy, it looks like it will simply tear them apart." Kleiner said. "Don't worry, it's no less humane than land mines or grenades."

"Yea, except this had a much larger blast radius" Jenna said, frowning.

"How about this, we'll focus more on the personal teleportation, and put the offensive mechanisms to the back of our minds," Kleiner said, noticing the disturbed look on Jenna's face.

Jenna cleaned up the mess, trying not to get sick. She finally finished and called it a day, and decided to head back to her room. She took off her clothes and PCV, which had began to smell like death. She soaked her clothes in the sink and began cleaning her PCV. After a half-hour of cleaning her PCV, it finally started not to reek anymore so she hung it up on the charging station in her room. She sat down on her bed, thinking about the day. After about 20 minutes of drowning herself in her thoughts, a sudden knock at the door jolted her back to reality.

"Who is it?" Jenna called

"It's Barney" said Barney's voice muffled from the door.

Jenna got up, punched the open button and the door slid open. Barney stood there in jeans and a black t-shirt. He looked abnormally handsome and clean-shaven, and it looked as if he had used product in his hair. Janet looked at him, very puzzled.

"You weren't at dinner" he said.

"yea, I had some… strange encounters today….so I'm not really hungry,"

Barney looked at her confused, but he knew she couldn't elaborate. "All of your secrets. Well, wanna come over to my place for a beer?"

"Uhm…." She started

"C'mon!" Said Barney, "you act like I'm some hideous monster."

"Alright, ALRIGHT" said Jenna with a small smile.

They walked around the corner and down the hall to his dorm. When Barney opened the door, Jenna tried hard not to laugh. His dorm, which was usually slightly untidy and smelled of aftershave, was now very clean and it smelled like he had maybe sprayed air freshener around.

"Woah, there, casa nova, expecting company?" Jenna said finally beginning to laugh.

"What? I have to be forever pigeon holed and labeled a slob bachelor forever? I can be organized and clean." Barney said, defending himself.

"No you can't" Jenna said, still laughing.

Barney started looking annoyed. "C'mon, Barney!" Jenna said, "Don't take it so personally! Fine, your place looks very nice,"

They sat at a small table in the kitchen talking. Suddenly, Barney began rubbing the back of his neck repeatedly.

"What's wrong, Barney?" Jenna said

"Nothing," he said, unsure if he even believed himself.

"Now who's keeping secrets from _whom?_" Jenna teased.

"It's just… well. I dunno." Barney said, stumbling on his words.

"What's up, Barney? You can tell me," Jenna said, feeling concerned.

"Well, it's just…. You've been here, what? About 5 months?" Barney said

Jenna nodded

"Well, do you… what do you think about me?" Barney asked, still furiously rubbing his neck.

"Wha…what do you mean?" said Jenna, her heart starting to race.

"Well, you're not, like, friends with me because you feel bad for me, do you?" Barney said.

"What?" Jenna said "Why would I feel bad for you?"

"I dunno, it's just that that someone suggested that you might just be friends with me because you feel bad for me, because I'm just a dumb security guard or whatever." Barney mumbled.

"Are you kidding? You are crazy popular. Why would I feel bad for _you?_" Jenna said, laughing.

"Yea, among security guards and 5 or 6 outcast scientists" said Barney.

"Look, Barney," Jenna started, "I am friends with you because I think you're a great guy. I enjoy being your friend."

"But….you don't think that you are, like, undercutting yourself? I mean, you're super smart, you have a PhD, you're funny, you're nice, you're pretty…" Barney said, trailing off at the end.

Jenna's heart jumped. At least he noticed her in a "pretty" sense.

"And you're what?" she said, "chopped liver?"

"Well, no. But I'm just a security guard with no college degree, no badass marine experience, nothing. Even Kleiner has more of an exciting story than I do."

"Barney," said Jenna, "You don't have a college degree, but you're bright, intelligent, and very handy- you know a lot more about this facility than I do. Not to mention you are extraordinarily funny, painfully nice, brimming with personality. Now stop freaking out."

"I don't know. I'm just being stupid, I guess," Barney said.

"Nah, it's ok," Jenna said. "So, is being a marine all you think about when you see me?" Jenna asked, biting her lip nervously.

"I don't get what you mean," Barney replied.

"I dunno. You know that Dr. Keller guy, the guy in the wheelchair?" Jenna said. Barney nodded, "He called me, and I quote 'a grunt in a lab coat pretending to be a scientist.' I dunno, this place makes me feel weird sometimes. Like maybe he's right and I'm just a grunt and nothing more."

"He is not right," Barney said, "He's just a jerk who wanted to belittle someone, and there was probably no security guards around. You're not a grunt pretending to be a scientist. You're a brilliant scientist who happens to be a badass marine"

"Yea, but, you don't just see me as…. Like, a marine, right? Like some grunt or… I dunno. When you think of me, is my marine experience the first thing that you think of?"

"No," Barney said, slightly confused, "But why are you so concerned about it? You are a marine, aren't you?"

"Well, yea, but I'm a woman, so I don't want to be seen as just some hardcore, rough marine. I want to be seen as a….person. Or something else…It's like being a freakin' marine is this black mark I wear on my head. I want to be seen as more than a grunt!" Jenna snapped, sounding agitated.

Seesh! OK!" Barney said laughing. "To be honest, when I saw you for the first time, I was surprised to find out you were a marine. You are very….lady like…or something….." said Barney, trailing off again.

"Whatever, this is a weird conversation, let's change the subject," said Jenna, beginning to blush, "So what's IS with your dorm, anyways?"

Barney looked annoyed.

"I'm just kidding, Barney." She said, smiling. She took a swig of beer, heaved a large sigh and finally began to relax.


	7. The Trip to Xen

A month later

In late September, summer faded into fall, bringing a chill to the desert of New Mexico. Jenna had grown weary of teleporting around the facility, never getting it right. One morning, Jenna was waiting for the lambda tram and saw Kleiner nowhere in sight. The lambda tram finally arrived, and Jenna was just about to board it and leave without him when suddenly, she saw him on another tram just seconds before the lambda tram was to depart. It stopped at the platform and Kleiner quickly ran to the lambda tram to make it in time.

"Morning, Doc," Jenna said, "Cutting it a little close, are we?"

"Morning, Jenna," doctor Kleiner said, "Yes, I am a little late. I just got back from talking with Dr. Breen and I have some exciting news! He has allowed me to see to it that you get to Xen. We have set up a reception point there, where we have been exploring for crystals. You can go there and coordinate the receptor with your device, which will enable you to use Xen as a slingshot for teleportation, as we have been doing. It might fix the problems with your device."

"GREAT!" Jenna exclaimed. "When can I go?"

"Today, if you wish," Kleiner answered.

"Absolutely," Jenna said, smiling "should I send for my PCV and mask from my room? Because of the atmosphere?"

"That would probably be a good idea," said Kleiner. "I will have Azian Vance escort you to Xen at 10:00 a.m. sharp. You can also help her find some more crystal samples."

Ten o'clock couldn't have arrived any slower. Ten minutes before her departure, Jenna put on her PCV gear and dashed to Dr. Kleiner's lab. Azian was waiting there, smiling at her when she came through the door.

"Hi, Azian," Jenna said.

"Greetings, Jenna" said Azian.

"Alright, ladies, let's go up to the main Xen teleport and we can get started." Kleiner said

They walked down the hall, around the corner to another elevator, one Jenna had never used before. They took the elevator up, and Kleiner led them to a large laboratory, like the one in the anomalous materials lab in sector C.

"Alright, when I start the teleport, Azian, you go first. I will re-start it, and Jenna, you can go after that."

"Ok" said Azian and Jenna together.

Kleiner climbed up a ladder (which was a funny sight Jenna had never seen before) to a large platform attached to the wall. He started fiddling with buttons and the computers, and the large teleportation machine whirled to life. While the machine warmed up, Azian put on her HEV helmet and Jenna put on her HEV mask. After warming up, there was a bright flash, and an orange teleport ball appeared in the middle of the reactor.

"Go, Azian" Kleiner yelled. Azian immediately ran up the ledge and jumped into the ball, disappearing.

The machine started up again, and after a while, the orange ball appeared again.

"Go now, Jenna" Kleiner bellowed.

Jenna, very nervous swayed on her feet for a split second before starting to sprint as fast as she could. Once she reached the edge, she jumped directly into the middle of the orb. The same black surrounded her. And she again only heard her breathing….

She finally came to in the strangest place she had ever seen. They were on a large, rocky looking platform in the middle of a blue, misty sky. She saw other platforms around the one she was on, but this one was the largest. She landed in front of what looked like 3 different caves leading to who knew where. She looked around, and saw an HEV-suit clad figure. She had landed exactly where Azian Vance did. "How were they so accurate?" she wondered.

Azian walked over to Jenna and filled her in on the basics- the gravitational change, the climate, the features of the ground, etc. Jenna was allowed to explore a small section, but was told not to go too far, because of unpredictable terrain. When she finished exploring, she coordinated her device with the teleport machine laying in her landing area. She hoped that she could use this teleportation machine to slingshot herself longer distances.

"Jenna, can you come here and help me get this crystal?" Azian bellowed from the left cave.

Jenna jogged over, through the cave. It was lit by strange plants that retracted when Jenna came near them. There was organic matter on the wall, and the walls themselves were made of a rocky substance that she had never seen before. Azian was looking down at a large crystal. It was only slightly marred by imperfections. It was certainly the purest they have seen yet.

"It's too heavy for me, can you help?" she asked Jenna.

Jenna nodded at put her gloved hands underneath it. Azian followed suit on the other side.

"Alright, ready? One….two….THREE" she said, and the two women hoisted it up. They carried it out of the cave, to the machine that was just outside.

They set it down, and Azian began working on a ride home. After a while, a ball of light appeared, and Azian looked over at Jenna again.

"Alright, we can both take it through, but we have to be sure to enter at the same time"

"That's comforting," said Jenna

"I'm sure there won't be a problem, just wait for three," Azian reassured her.

On three, they hoisted it up again, and slowly walked through the teleport simultaneously.

Within three seconds, they were back at Kleiner's lab, the crystal- and all of their body parts- still intact. She was actually getting use to this teleportation feeling.

For a month, Jenna busied herself with two things: the teleportation device and Barney. She spent most of her days in the Lambda Labs, where she had gotten really far in finishing her device. She was able to teleport long distances, and would frequently teleport to crystal bases that she set up in deserted, far reaching areas of the compound (the areas that were approved by Breen, of course). Unfortunately, she was still having accuracy issues and if she set coordinates for areas right outside the base, she would sometimes teleport herself to odd places in Xen. Once day, she accidentally teleported herself into the middle of nothing and began falling through space. To avoid being killed or sent through space forever, she quickly recharged the gun and fired it again, teleporting herself back to Black Mesa. However, she teleported back to a locker room. No one saw, fortunately, but Breen screamed at her for three hours straight and forbid her from trying distances that far again.

When Jenna wasn't working, she spent her free time hanging out with Barney. They hang out every day, being mutually flirtatious. They were practically inseparable- she watched Barney repeatedly beat Gordon in vent challenges, they ate together, they hung out in each other's dorm rooms to just watch a movie or talk, they even picked back up with Hazard Course races (Jenna taught Barney the correct way to handle the SMG's grenade launcher). Jenna usually won the races, unless she was tired or injured from teleportation accidents.

However, one day, Barney kicked her ass pretty severely in a race, surprising even him.

"Hey, what's going on?" He asked her, "You usually embarrass _me! _But today I felt like I was racing a kid in a wheelchair. Is something up?"

"No, I'm fine" Jenna said, taking off her PCV (Barney finally conceded to letting them race in their own armor, since it was what they were used to).

"You're lying. And you're a lousy liar so it's almost insulting to my intelligence that you thing I'd buy that" he said, smiling at her.

"Let's go to your room and watch a movie," said Jenna.

Barney picked up on her cue "Fine," he said, pretending to be reluctant.

When they reached his room, she looked at him, worried.

"Sorry, I didn't want to say anything in front of the cameras, the thing is…." She began

"WAIT!" He yelled, causing her to jump. "SHHH!!" He said, silencing her. He ran to his TV, turned it on and cranked up the volume.

"Barney, you're so paranoid it's scary," said Jenna.

"Whatever, when you realize that this protected our privacy, you'll thank me!" he said.

"Whatever" she said, shaking her head, "I can't tell you everything, but you know those crystals that have been tested on in sector C?"

"Yea" he answered

"Well, they come from the lambda labs. Don't ask how" she said, noticing the curious look on his face. "I have been….working with them, but any time I ask a question about them, they yell at me. They say I am not high enough clearance to know. But the thing is, I got a sample that had some sort of toxic ooze on it, but it was mixed with organic material. I asked about it, and got the same results: a face full of pissed off Breen."

"What do you think it is?" said Barney, his interest highly peaked.

"I don't know. Let's just drop it, I've probably said too much already. It's just got me rattled." She said, shivering slightly. "Let's change the subject- did you buy those flowers for your sister?"

"Oh, Lauren? Uhm… not yet." Barney said, looking down at his feet.

"You know, she'll never forgive you if she thinks that you didn't care about her getting into a car accident! Just send them!" she said, pushing him on the shoulder.


	8. The Holidays at Black Mesa

Two weeks later, right before everyone went on vacation for Thanksgiving, there was a big push around the entire facility for everyone to finish their projects. Jenna was testing the device 30 maybe 40 times a day, burning through crystals. One day, when she was looking to get more crystals, she walked into Kleiner's office. She noticed that he look especially frazzled.

"Hey, doc. What's wrong?" Jenna asked

"Oh, hi Jenna. It's nothing. The administrator is just being difficult. He wants us to get a perfect, unmarked crystal from Xen so we can have a complete profile of them," he said, looking down.

"Hmm. Yea, Breen's being a pain." Jenna said. "So how are you going to get a perfect sample?"

"Well, we have an exploration team looking for one right now," Kleiner said, looking worried.

"What's wrong, doc?" Jenna begged.

"I'm sorry, Jenna, but you know I can't tell you" Kleiner said, looking genuinely apologetic. "Look on the bright side, if we can harness unmarked samples, then your teleportation device will probably stop delivering faulty results," he said, trying to force a smile.

"You mean, it'll stop dropping me into the middle of space? Ya, that'd be nice. Not even because I don't want to be lost in space, but so Breen will get off my back!" Jenna said.

Kleiner finally chuckled, "You're absolutely right. Alright, Jenna. You're here for more samples, right? I'll have some delivered to your office."

**A week later**

The perfect sample wasn't collected before Thanksgiving, much to Breen's disdain. Fortunately for everyone else, they had a very pleasant week off. No tests were conducted, which means that the power outages and equipment malfunctions were kept at a very manageable minimum. Thanksgiving, while not especially festive around Black Mesa, did involve a nice turkey dinner that Breen probably only allowed to stave off a disgruntled employee revolt for another week.

None of Jenna's delightful mix of misfits went away for the thanksgiving holiday- the Vances didn't want to travel with a toddler, Kleiner accused his siblings of being immature and oafish and refused to see them, Barney was scared of the wrath of his sister for not sending flowers or a card after her accident, Gordon's parents weren't doing anything so he didn't want to buy a plane ticket, Gina and Collette both decided they didn't want to travel during the hectic holidays, and Jenna's parents also weren't doing anything anyways, so she didn't bother going home.

The entire group gathered around 6 p.m. on Thursday for their thanksgiving dinner. Everyone got dressed up for the occasion- or maybe it just seemed that way to Jenna, who was used to seeing them clad in lab coats, Kevlar vests and HEV suits. Even Barney decided to wear a nice black long sleeve shirt, which Gordon taunted him relentlessly for. In response, Barney started teasing Gordon about everything else. Their banter took up a majority of the evenings' conversation.

"You looked like you twirled off of a GAP poster with that sweater" Gordon said to Barney.

"Very original, Gordon," said Barney, "Say, can you see through walls with those crazy thick glasses of yours?"

"ha. Ha. Ha" said Gordon facetiously, "Hey, isn't it exhausting when you finish your shift here you have to immediately put on that sweater and beret and teach an art class?"

"OUCH!" interjected Gina. Everyone laughed hard.

"Yea, it's pretty tiring," said Barney, smiling, "But isn't it weird that when you look at a map through those glasses, you can actually see people waving at you?"

"Yea, it freaked me out the first time," Gordon said, "but not as freaked out as I am with you eyeing me while wearing that sweater of yours."

"I think that instead of getting a Christmas tree to put in the cafeteria, Black Mesa should just hang ornaments from Gordon's gross looking facial hair. Is being homeless you night job, Gordon?" Barney said

The entire table was in hysterics. Eli and Azian were chuckling, Jenna, Gina, and Collette were wiping tears from their eyes from laughing so hard, Alyx was bouncing up and down in her seat from the excitement, and even Kleiner had a wide smile.

"Alright, boys, let's settle down," said Eli softly when all of the laughing had died down. "You know," Eli started again, looking around, "Christmas is almost here! You know what that means don't you?" he said, landing on Alyx."

"SANTA IS COMING! SANTA IS COMING!" Alyx said, bouncing up and down clapping her hands.

Barney faked a large gasp, "SANTA is coming?" He said, getting up from the table when his plate was cleared. He picked her up and gave her a big hug, "WOA!!! Cool!"

"yea, hopefully he'll bring Barney a new shirt" said Gordon. The table laughed again.

Barney flipped Gordon the bird below his belt, out of Alyx's view. He looked back to Alyx again, "So what are you gonna ask Santa for this year, Al?"

"LOTS of stuff!" Alyx said. "I want a doll, and a play house, and a new bike, and…"

"Seesh, kiddo" said Gordon across the table, smiling "That's a lot of stuff for Santa to carry."

Alyx looked at him as if he was nuts, "But mommy said that if I make him extra yummy cookies and milk then he'll leave me lots of good stuff!"

She suddenly looked like she had an epiphany, "JENNA!"

She leapt out of Barney's arms and ran to Jenna, who looked at her slightly puzzled but laughing. "Will you bake Santa cookies for me? You make _the best_ cookies!" she said, grabbing Jenna's hand and shaking it furiously.

"Oh, kiddo," Jenna said, pulling Alyx up into her arms, "I can't make them _for you_, otherwise they won't be from you, but I can _help_ you make them."

"Now what do you say, Alyx?" said Azian.

"Thank you!" said Alyx, giving Jenna an appreciative hug.

Jenna smiled. It had been, by far, the best thanksgiving she ever had.

**A month later**

The perfect crystal sample was still unattained in the month between thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays. Jenna's progress with the displacer was about the same, as well. Because of this, Dr. Breen was not as kind about time off for Christmas as he was for Thanksgiving. The group only had Christmas Eve and Christmas day off, meaning everyone was, once again, stuck at Black Mesa for another holiday.

Jenna, however, didn't mind. The winter brought near freezing temperatures to New Mexico, causing Jenna's bad knee to hurt often. It was frequently stiff and painful to move. Needless to say, Barney was frequently winning in the hazard course races lately.

On December 23, after a close race, Jenna pulled off her mask and flopped down to the ground, rubbing her knee.

"That's an entire 12-pack, now, Jenna" Barney said, choosing a seat next to her.

"Yea, yea," Jenna said, wincing when her hand rubbed over a very tender spot. "You must be so proud-beating a crippled woman and all."

"Yea, a crippled woman who happens to be one of the marine's deadliest guns. Your crippled is my healthy. It's about even." Barney said, smiling.

He got up, hooked his arms underneath Jenna, who was clearly struggling to get up, and hoisted her up. She put his arm around his shoulder, using him as a temporary human crutch.

"Maybe we should give these races a break," Jenna said. "I want to be able to get back to full health one day."

"Suit yourself," Barney said, "But you still owe me a case of beer."

Barney helped Jenna back into her room, where she peeled off her PVC and put it back on the charging unit.

"Hey, so I have a Christmas gift for you, but I can't give it to you in front of anyone else" said Jenna, pulling out a large box from under her bed. It was wrapped in pretty blue paper with white snowflakes. It also had a bow on the top.

"Aw, Jen," said Barney, rubbing his neck, "you didn't have to get me anything."

"Just open the box and you'll be happy I did," Jenna said, smiling.

While he unwrapped the box, Jenna went into the bathroom to change. He opened the box, which contained two other boxes and two books. The books were titled "The Truth About Aliens" and "Government Conspiracies."

Barney smiled. Jenna had picked up on the fact that he was a bit of a conspiracy buff. It was the reason he took the job at Black Mesa in the first place. He thought the prospect of working on a secret underground government lab was the coolest thing to ever happen to him, so when a recruiter took him out of college (he was training to become a police officer) and offered him the job, he couldn't say yes fast enough. Now he sort of regretted not finishing school and going to the police academy. He gave it up to come here, be kept in the dark about everything, and be pushed around by asshole scientists.

"At least it led me to her," Barney thought, looking at the door to the bathroom.

Barney looked back down at the two other smaller boxes. One contained a batch of fresh baked goodies- cookies, breads, etc. He took a slice of banana bread out of the box, stuffing the whole thing into his mouth. It was moist, sweet and delicious, with a cinnamon flavor baked in. He was amazed at what Jenna could create in such a limited tiny dorm kitchen.

Jenna walked out, looking at Barney's cheeks full of bread and laughed. Her hair was pulled into a pony tail and she was wearing something that Barney had never seen her wear before- a tank top. It had thin straps, revealing her beautiful shoulders and neck. He cursed his impulsiveness. While she stood there looking sexy as hell, he sat there like an oaf with a mouth full of food.

"You like the food?" Jenna said, smiling.

"Definitely" Barney said with a mouthful of bread, spitting tiny crumbs out of his mouth.

Jenna laughed. "Check out the other box" she said, mischievously.

Barney opened the box, which contained the best gift of all- trumping the books- a piece of those weird crystals he had seen a bunch of scientists gawking at in sector C. He had been talking for weeks about how cool they looked and how he wanted to get his hands on one. It glowed- actually _glowed-_ orange and bright. Barney gasped and looked up at Jenna.

"OH my god! This is the greatest Christmas gift I have ever gotten! I love you!" He blurted out, Jenna looked startled, "Well, I mean…" he could feel himself blushing, "like in a friendly, friend way, ya know" he said rubbing his neck.

"Yea, I gathered," said Jenna, who was also blushing slightly.

"Jenna, you don't understand," Barney said, "This is, by far, the greatest gift anyone has even gotten me! How did you get it?"

"Well, I was using it for an experiment. When I was done, instead of destroying it, I just kinda… kept it." She said, with a cocky yet shy smile.

"You have no idea how much this means to me, Jenna" Barney said, "Thank you SO much! I could never thank you enough,"

"God, Barney, it's just a science experiment," Jenna said, blushing.

"No, it's a lot more than that. I got you something, too. I just hope it can compare," he said, pulling a box out of the side pocket of his cargo pants.

"Oh gosh, Barney," Jenna said, smiling, "I'm sure it'll be great."

She slowly and nervously grabbed the box from his hands and began to tear off the plain red paper it was wrapped in. She saw that underneath the paper, there was what looked like a large jewelry box. Her heart began to race. She slowly opened the box and gasped at the contents. It was a falcon, with its wings outstretched and circling upwards. In between its wings lay a Celtic knot. It was a duplicate of one that Jenna had worn every day, until about two months ago when it was completely destroyed in an experiment accident.

"Oh my god, Barney!" Jenna whispered. "How did you….?"

"You got frustrated and tossed your old one in the trash, so I picked it out, took it to a goldsmith-jeweler-place outside of the base, and they were able to re-create it." Barney said, with a shy, unsure smile.

"Barney, I don't know what to say" Jenna said, "I love it!"

"Phew, man am I glad. I wasn't sure if you wanted it re-created. I didn't know if your old one was some heirloom and I was doing it injustice by trying to copy it."

"Oh, my god, not at all! This is beautiful," Jenna said, noticing a small diamond in the falcon's eye. "Thank you so much! You made my Christmas so wonderful!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him.

She departed from his arms and got up to look in the mirror. While she was putting the necklace on, Barney noticed some unusual things about her back. She had multiple scars, holes, and marks all around. Most noticeably on her right shoulder, there were three holes; there was a slice on her left shoulder; and there was a large hole in the middle of her back on the right hand side, barely visible peeking above the top of her tank top.

Jenna looked at him through the mirror. "Pretty narly, huh?" she said, frowning.

"What?" Barney said.

"My scars," Jenna replied. "They're pretty hideous, huh?"

"I…I didn't mean to… I don't think they're bad" Barney stuttered.

"I don't care, Barney. Everyone has the same reaction. Pretty shocking to see such gross scars on a woman. Women are supposed to have perfect, dainty porcelain skin," she said, grabbing a jacket from her dresser and throwing it on, "It's why I never wear open back shirts."

"Jenna, I wasn't staring at them because I think they're gross, I was just thinking about how there's so much about you that I still don't even know. Even though I thought… I don't know" Barney trailed off, looking dejected.

Jenna heaved a huge sigh and sat next to him on the bed. She took of her jacket, revealing her bare shoulders again. She turned away from him, revealing her back. She looked back at him and began pointing.

"This," she said, pointing to the three on her right shoulder "was from shrapnel from a grenade. My flack jacket at the time was already in shambles and then the enemy tossed a grenade our way. I didn't get out of the way fast enough. This one," she said pointing to the slice on her left shoulder "was from falling down onto a sharp rock. I was tossed off a ledge by an enemy militant. This one" she pulled down her shirt, revealing the entire hole about an inch and a half wide in the middle of the right side of her back, "was an enemy sniper bullet. It would have blown my head off if I hadn't suddenly gotten up from a crouched position. This," she said pointing to a slice below the bullet hole, "was the surgery to take out the sniper bullet. These," she lifted the bottom of her shirt up, revealing three holes on her left hip, "shotgun blast from an ambush. And these "she turned towards him, lifted up the front of her shirt revealing not only her toned stomach, but three 4 or 5" long slashes on her stomach "are from being stabbed while I was captured for two days. These two are the stab marks- one stab each day I was there for not talking- and this third was from the surgery for internal bleeding. The guy who was captured with me didn't make it out."

"Gosh, Jenna," Barney said, looking at the sad expression on her face, "I didn't mean to pry, or upset you."

"It's ok. I just don't like showing them to people. Stab wounds and bullet holes don't exactly scream 'sexy,' ya know? I try really hard to feel normal, but every time I look in the mirror at my back and stomach, I am just reminded of how I'm just pretending to be normal." She said with a frown.

"Well, maybe you're not normal," Barney said, "but no one is. At least you'll have an interesting story to tell your kids one day."

Jenna looked up at Barney, who was looking into her eyes. She shot up, and rubbed her left arm with her right hand, blushing.

"Well, uhh, I'm gonna go to bed. I have a long day of trying to bake with Alyx tomorrow, you know… for Santa." Jenna mumbled. "Thanks for the necklace Barney," she said, leaning in and giving him a very soft kiss on his cheek. "Now put that crystal back in the box so no one will see it."

Barney walked back to his room, touching the cheek that had been kissed by the softest lips in history.

The next day, everyone gathered at the Vances' place, which was actually a two-bedroom apartment rather than a small dorm with a kitchen. By the time Barney had arrived, Jenna was in the kitchen with Alyx. There was a small trace of flour in her hair, on her cheek, and on the top of her shirt. Alyx had a flour-topped nose, a gift from Jenna, no doubt. The room smelled of vanilla, chocolate, and cinnamon from the assortment of cookies Alyx and Jenna were preparing for Santa.

Barney took off his jacket and smiled at Jenna. She was wearing a sparkly black blouse tucked into a white slightly above-the-knee pencil skit, and she was wearing black high heels. She was also wearing the necklace Barney had given her, which sat beautifully on her soft neck. Barney was wearing a black collared shirt with tan slacks. His black hair was pushed back, creating a slight wave. He had a clean-shaven face, which Jenna knew wouldn't last long (he always got stubble quickly).

Barney hung up his jacket on the rack by the door. He walked into the kitchen and gave Alyx a hug.

"Need any help?" Barney asked, looking at Jenna.

"Uhm, I think we're about done," Jenna responded, "You can go ahead and sit, if you want."

"I don't leave until the chef leaves," Barney said, giving Jenna a roguish smile.

"Well, in that case," Jenna said walking towards Barney, "make yourself useful and tell me if these taste good."

She took a piece of a fresh cookie and slowly fed it to him. It was possibly the best cookie Barney ever had, or maybe it was the way Jenna nervously bit her soft lip, but Barney began to feel weak in the knees. He quickly grabbed the counter for support, causing Jenna to smile in a sexy, mischievous way.

"Good?" Jenna asked.

"Absolutely," Barney said in response to her ambiguous question.

As all of the other guests slowly began filling into the house, Barney stayed in the kitchen with Jenna being very flirtatious. After a few minutes Alyx returned from getting dressed in her room, coming back to assist Jenna in the kitchen. Barney finally grabbed a chair, but occasionally met Jenna's eyes across the room, causing them to both smile.

Everyone gathered around, chatting in the living room while picking at some food Azian made earlier. When Jenna and Alyx finished their baking, they set some aside for Alyx's Santa stash, and then Jenna sent Alyx around with the baked goods to offer to the guests. While Alyx was making the rounds, Jenna looked around for an empty chair, but there were none left. She, instead, perched herself on the arm rest of the lounge chair Barney was sitting in. Jenna started idly picking stray fibers off of Barney's shirt, causing Barney to have chills where her hands touched him lightly.

After many hours of being together, Alyx started urging everyone to leave so Santa could come. Taking the hint, they group cleared out. Jenna and Barney helped clean up after everyone left, but they, too were ushered out by Alyx who was waiting for Santa.

They walked out to the outdoor tram platform and waited for it to come and take them back to their living quarters. It was very cold outside, and the tram seemed like it was taking forever. Jenna, who had only brought a light sweater, starting shaking quietly next to Barney.

"Here, take this," Barney said, taking his jacket off.

"I can't," Jenna said, pushing his hand away. "You're gonna freeze."

"Are you kidding? I'll be fine. But you're shaking like a leaf" Barney said, wrapping the jacket around her. She was still shivering, so he took her in his arms and gave her a tight hug to help warm her up.

Jenna looked up at him, meeting his eyes. He leaned in closer, and continued to inch closer until he could feel her sweet breath near his mouth. Suddenly, the automated horn of the tram sounded, telling them that it was rounding the corner. The horn caused Jenna to jump a little, and she nervously ran her hands through her hair as she stepped away from Barney.

They boarded the tram, sitting next to each other. She leaned against his shoulder, and he put his arms around her. She heaved a huge, content sigh- she could have laid there forever. They didn't say anything the whole ride there- they wouldn't have known what to say.

The tram came to a halt at the living quarters station, and they both got off. Barney walked Jenna to her room. When they finally came to her door, Barney broke the silence.

"Well, uhm…. You looked really pretty tonight," he said, rubbing his neck like he always did when he was nervous.

"I'm glad you noticed," said Jenna, taking off his jacket and handing it back to him. She looked up at him, trying not to collapse under the weight of anticipation.

They paused for a long moment. Barney swayed on his feet a little, before finally saying, "Well, I should get going." He almost kicked himself.

"Yea." Jenna said, sounding just a tiny bit annoyed.

Jenna walked into her room and shut the door behind her. Barney dragged his feet all the way back to the room, cursing his stupidity.

"She wanted you to kiss her" said the patronizing voice in his head. He cursed the whole way to his room before going through the door and collapsing on his bed.

**The next day**

Barney didn't see Jenna on Christmas day. He cursed at himself for freezing at her door the night before, which probably caused her to be embarrassed and avoid him. Instead of sitting around his room, beating himself up about it, he went to Gordon's room to share in some good Christmas cheer… or, rather, Christmas beer.

They were sitting in the small living area, drinking their beers when Gordon finally asked, "So, what is going ON with you and Jenna?"

"What do you mean?" Barney said, pretending to not know what he was talking about.

"Oh, come ON!" Gordon exclaimed, "You know what I'm talking about. Eyeing each other across the room, the weird touching, the annoying and goofy smile you have constantly plastered to your face when she's within eyeshot. Are you two a couple or something?"

"No. I wish." Barney said, looking down into his amber colored drink, "I always freeze around her and I always get panicky and awkward. I'm completely impaired when it comes to actually making a move."

"Nice going, Romeo," Gordon said. "Well, it's pretty clear she likes you, too; which is odd because you're funny looking and she's pretty hot."

"You think so?" Barney said.

"Oh, absolutely. In my opinion, you're hideous." Gordon said, laughing.

"No, I meant you really think she's into me? Like she's not just being flirty because I'm just always around? I might actually have a chance?" Barney said.

"Honestly, buddy, if I knew the ways of women, I would have went to state school and gotten laid millions of times instead of going to MIT and getting laid like 4 times," Gordon said, "but she's definitely showing an….interest in you. I don't know if it's actual feelings or if she's just playing around. You should just ask her."

"Yea, I think I'll pass. That can go either really well or really poorly." Barney said.

"I guess you just have to consider whether or not it's worth the risk," Gordon said, shrugging.

"She's worth the risk, but I don't have a lot of luck with the ladies. You remember what happened with Tracy, don't you…?" Barney said, shuddering as he trailed off.

"Yea, that was unpleasant being around you after that," Gordon said, "But you might have kinda shot yourself in the foot, pal, because Jenna-well, all of the science team- is going to be completely swamped with Breen's demands for the next week. You'll probably have to wait until after the New Year to approach her about it, unless you have a really good opportunity before then."

Barney sighed, knowing Gordon was right. He finished his beer and followed it with another one.


	9. The Perfect Sample

**Three days later **

It had been three whole days of not seeing Jenna. She was constantly gone before Barney got up, and she didn't return until after he went to bed. Breen must have really been cracking down, because that was the case with most of Barney's scientist friends. They were working practically 18 hour days for the past three days. Finally, the morning of what would have been the fourth day, as he was in line to get breakfast, a familiar hand appeared next to him, holding a cup of coffee.

"Now, this is the type of treatment a guy could get used to," Barney said, turning around to face her. "Yea," he continued as he grabbed the coffee from her hand, "no more of this not seeing you for three days stuff."

"Sorry," Jenna said, "I've been super swamped, but _today_ is a much better day! We have the exact location of the perfect sample, and they are going to retrieve it today, but not until 11 so I have some time to sit and catch up."

They grabbed a seat at a table where no one else was sitting.

Barney looked around for eavesdroppers, "So where _do _you get those samples, anyway?"

Jenna frowned, "Barney, you know I can't tell you. Just be grateful that I snagged you one."

"All these secrets," Barney said, "you scientists must be up do something big."

"Hey," Jenna said, "They don't even tell _me_ all of the details! I don't even know _exactly _where it's coming from. So we're kinda in the same boat."

"Yea." Barney agreed, as he started picking at his food, "So do you think Breen will get off everyone's back now?"

"Doubt it," Jenna said, frowning. "It might even get worse. There are a lot of follow up tests that will need to be done. In fact, the sector C analysis team is set to analyze the sample _tomorrow_. I think Gordon is the person set to be in the chamber for that."

"Lucky dog," Barney said, jealously, "he always gets to do cool experiments."

"I wouldn't be so quick to be jealous just yet," Jenna said, "a pure sample could be a lot more unstable then the ones we've been looking at recently, and even those impure samples are wreaking havoc all around!"

They finished up their coffee and breakfast and bid each other goodbye. Jenna took her normal two-tram route to the lambda labs, wondering how long before she could get her hands on a pure sample. A pure sample, she guessed, might fix the bugs in her teleport device. He looked at her PCV underneath her lab coat- she was ready for a good sample.

She got off the tram, confirmed her identity with the guard as always, and took the elevator down to the offices and labs. When she arrived at her office, Breen and Kleiner were waiting there in silence, staring each other down like a couple of old gun-slingers from a campy western movie.

"What….what's going on?" Jenna asked hesitantly.

"Dr. Breen is requesting that you assist us in the extraction of the sample, today, Jenna," Kleiner said, sounding resentful.

"You will need your PCV mask, as well as a weapon," Breen said, in a hauntingly casual way.

"What?!?" Jenna asked, shocked. "What will I need a weapon for? Are there life forms on Xen?"

There was silence.

"Is there life on Xen?" Jenna demanded.

"WHAT'S IT TO _YOU?_!" Breen snapped back.

Jenna jumped at the sudden outburst.

"Look," said Breen, regaining his composure, "I'm going to be honest with you, there are no life forms in the areas where we have been exploring, so far. But this place- where we found the pure sample- is a bit away from our normal exploration area. We cannot rule out everything, and we want to be sure that all precautions are instituted, that's all."

Jenna wasn't sure if she completely believed him. "I will go up to my room and get my stuff, I guess," she said, cautiously.

"Dr. Brandenburgh," Breen said, "I assure you, there is nothing there you need to worry about. We just have to ensure nothing goes wrong during this extraction. You more there to give the government piece of mind," he added, giving Jenna a slimy smile.

The entire time, Kleiner remained silent, looking down at his notes with a strange intentness. Jenna turned around, went out of her office, and back up the elevator.

During the tram ride, her thoughts raced, "Did they discover aliens on Xen?" she thought. "Is that why they want me to go? So I can dispatch of aliens who will try to attack us?"

She arrived at her room, grabbed her mask and attached it to her PCV, but didn't put it on yet. She opened her closet, and dug to the very back, where she kept a gun safe that she hadn't opened since she got there. She grabbed her desert eagle, loaded it with a full clip and stuffed that and some extra clips in a holster on her belt. She also grabbed her Spas-12 shotgun and loaded it. She cocked it, so it would be ready at a moment's notice. She put the safety on to keep it from accidentally going off, and strapped it to her back. She put some extra shells in a box on her belt. She assumed that was enough weapons, and locked up her safe again.

She made her way back to the lambda labs, getting some strange stares along the way from people curious about the small arsenal on her hips. She arrived back to her office, where Kleiner and Breen were still sitting, as if they hadn't moved at all.

"Good," said Breen, trying to sound reassuring. "Now let's just get you guys there and back."

Breen got up, followed by Kleiner. They walked out of the office, with Jenna following. They entered the large teleportation machine lab, where Azian Vance, Gina Cross, Dr. Harper- a middle-aged man who worked in the mysterious Gamma labs, and Dr. Phil Menna- who Jenna only had met once were all putting on their hazard suits. When they were all suited up, Dr. Breen, Kleiner, and Collette Green all started the teleport machine. After warming up, a huge green ball appeared in front of them.

"You all will go in together," Breen yelled over the hum of machinery, "Jenna, keep watch over them!"

"Alright, guys," Azian Vance said, "On three. One….two…THREE"

They all walked into the teleport ball at once. The usual darkness surrounded Jenna, and then she appeared somewhere in Xen where she never had seen before. They all looked around, getting their bearings. Jenna pulled out her desert eagle, took the safety off and cocked it. She held it at the ready.

"Alright, everyone," Azian said, "follow me."

She led, Jenna followed, and everyone else came behind. Jenna looked back frequently, for anything suspicious. Azian led them around a bend, to an opening of a cave.

"We're gonna need our flashlights, people," Azian said.

Every took out their flashlights, while Jenna pulled out her night vision goggles out of a large pocket on her vest, put them over her eyes and turned them on. The cave was extremely tall, about 20 feet, was Jenna's guess. It looked about the same as the other Xen caves, except that it had green flower looking things with green balls in the middle covering the walls.

There was also a large bent needle looking plant. It was swaying slightly to the left and right, which gave Jenna chills because there was no wind. Dr. Menna, who could only see limited things with his flashlight, stepped close to it, lightly touching the base with his heel. The plant thing immediately turned to him cocked its sharp needle up, coming back down with a loud *wooosh.* It looked like it was going to impale him, but Dr. Menna jumped out of the way in time, and the plant only nicked his shoulder. Jenna put up her gun, aiming at the plant. Right before she was about to pull the trigger, Dr. Harper yelled "WAIT!"

She looked over at the man from the Gamma labs, who was shining a light at the plant. Through the green glow of Jenna's goggles, she could see him looking at the thing.

"It's only a plant. It's like a venus fly trap. It'll attack if it feels threatened. So will these spore plants, he said, shining her light onto the green flower things."

Jenna looked at him, wondering how he knew this. She lowered her gun, and looked at Dr. Menna.

"It's just a scratch. Are you gonna be okay to walk with us?" Jenna asked. He nodded. She helped him to his feet and they continued on.

They turned corners and wound through a maze of tunnels until finally coming to a room that was lit with the orange glow of the crystals. Jenna turned off her night vision goggles and took them off. She was amazed at the sight. There seemed up be a whole room of untouched crystals, just hanging off the walls or attached to the floor. Azian walked over to a medium sized one on the floor. She wiggled it, showing the group that it was loose.

"We need to pry it away" she said.

Everyone else, including Jenna, pried, wiggled, and jerked until it finally came away from the ground. It wasn't particularly heavy, but Dr. Menna couldn't hold anything with his bad shoulder, so Jenna helped the science team carry it out to the surface. They lugged it back to the place where they teleported in, where a large orange orb was waiting to take them home. Jenna gave the weird area one last look over.

"No hostile life" she thought to herself. Maybe Breen was telling the truth after all.

On Azian's cue, all of the scientists walked through the portal again, and arrived at Black Mesa seconds later. The whole journey took about an hour and a half. When they came through, Breen raced over to them, and inspected the crystal.

"YES!" Breen exclaimed. "YES!" he bellowed again "We will carry out the analysis first thing in the morning! Green, Cross, go tell the anomalous materials people that we are on track. Dr. Menna," he said, looking at the injured scientist, "you've had worse, right? Go to the infirmary and get yourself patched up. I will have this sample delivered to the anomalous materials prep room immediately. You all officially get the rest of the day off!"

Not wanting to take the chance of Breen changing his mind, the science team all dispersed and went back to their dorms.


	10. The Incident

Jenna spent the afternoon getting her laundry done, charging up her PCV, and even catching up on some sleep. It would have been a normally nice afternoon, except Jenna was growing increasingly leery about the following day's big test. She couldn't shake a pessimistic, ominous feeling that was sitting heavily in her gut.

When dinner time finally came, she was one of the first in her group to arrive, followed closely by Gina and Collette, who both looked just as somber. Kleiner came next, looking angry rather than worried. Eli, Azian and Alyx came next. The adults were trying to hide their frustration and fear from their daughter. Gordon came next, looking flustered and Barney was about ten steps behind him.

When they all had settled, Barney noticed the looks everyone's' faces, "What's up with the somber crowed, over here?" he asked.

"We have to look at that damn sample tomorrow morning!" Eli said, "The equipment is already about to go critical- everything is breaking, exploding, or melting down, and Breen wants to look at an extremely unstable sample? It's ridiculous."

"It's just pretty dangerous" Jenna said, running her hands nervously through her hair while she looked over at Barney.

"yea, and I'm at ground zero tomorrow," spat Gordon, bitterly, "I'm toast."

"geez, guys," Barney said, looking worried, "do you think something really bad will happen? You guys are the experts, so please just let me know!"

Kleiner mumbled something about a resonance cascade, Eli began cursing Breen under his breath, and everyone else sat there, silently picking at their dinner.

"Look, Barney," Jenna said, finally, "I'm sure everything will be fine. We can't just think about the worst case scenario."

They all finished dinner, and Eli finally said, "Well, we should all go to bed. We're _all _in for a long day tomorrow."

As Jenna and Barney walked back to their rooms, Barney began frantically rubbing his neck.

"Barney, are you alright?" Jenna asked, knowing that he was very nervous.

"Well, I just….it's just…uhm…." Barney stuttered.

Jenna raised her eyebrow, "Are you ok? Seriously, Barney." Jenna said, now sounding worried.

"No, I'm fine," Barney mumbled, "it's just….well. UGH!" Barney yelled.

"Barney! Spit it out!" Jenna said, very curious now.

"Do you want to have dinner with me….at my place tomorrow?" Barney asked.

"You mean, like a date?" Jenna asked, biting her lip nervously.

"Ya, you don't have to though," Barney immediately responded.

"Barney, calm down!" Jenna said, laughing a little bit. She stopped laughing and looked at him very intently now, "I would love to come over tomorrow. How about 8?"

"Yea, sounds great!" Barney said, beaming.

"I'll see you then," Jenna said, walking through her door.

"Ok, see ya when I see ya," said Barney.

He turned around and walked away feeling very ecstatic. Suddenly he felt very panicked.

"What am I going to cook?" He thought frantically to himself.

**The Day of the Incident- December 29, 200?**

The day started out average. Jenna woke up, showered, and put on her PCV. Not being able to shake off the feeling that something might go wrong with the experiment, she also pulled out her desert eagle again, loaded it, and, like the day before, put the gun and some extra clips in a holster and pouch on her belt. She put her lab coat on over her PCV and gun, so that she would attract undue attention. She headed to the living area cafeteria and saw Barney, who was already waiting for her with two coffees in hand. He walked up to her, handing her a coffee.

"So," Jenna said, taking a coffee from Barney, "Are we still on for tonight?"

Barney rubbed his neck, "Yea. But, I mean, if you want to cancel, I'll understand."

"Barney, stop being so nervous," Jenna said, smiling, "I want nothing more than to end this crazy testing day by coming to your dorm for a perfect date. Hanging out, relaxing after a long day…It'll be perfect."

"Perfect except for the fact that I don't know how to cook…." Barney mumbled.

"Then order something," Jenna said, "It doesn't matter to me. The food is not the most important part."

"I'll think of something. Let's change the subject before I get… whatever. Are you nervous about the test today?" Barney said, still rubbing his neck.

"A little bit. But I don't think it's a bad nervous," she quickly added, seeing the worried look on Barney's face. "I think it's more excitement to finally be able to get Breen off our case." Jenna said.

Jenna finished her coffee and looked at her watch, "Well, I'd better get going. I'm supposed to analyze the data sent from Gordon's experiment. Big fun! I get to read reports on a computer!"

"Alright, I'll see ya when I see ya" Barney said. Jenna made her way down to the lambda labs, while Barney, who was scheduled for rotation today, made his way to the area 3 security facility, where he would get his assignment.

He took the tram to sector c, which housed the security facility. He said good morning to Otis, who was at the checkpoint along the way. A few minutes later, he saw Gordon's figure standing at the platform of the sector C living area. He checked it watch: 8:57 a.m. Gordon was late.

He nodded at Gordon, who looked flustered at being late.

He got to the platform of the security center, got off the tram and went to the door. He tried to open it, but it buzzed at him and refused to move.

"Hold on a minute" said a muffled voice from inside, "The door's not responding to your pass I.D. Let me see if I can get it open from this side."

While he waited, Gordons tram passed by. Gordon nodded at him, still looking flustered. Barney didn't know if he was flustered from the upcoming experiment or because he was late…or both.

"Ok, I think I got it" said the man on the other side of the door. The door beeped and slid to the side.

"Sorry about that, Calhoun," said Greg Beck, the security guard on the other side, "we've been having problems all over the facility this morning. System crashes, security malfunctions, it's a wonder this whole place hasn't shut down yet," he finished, activating the retinal scanner to let Barney through.

"It's ok, Greg. Let's just try to survive the day, right?" Barney said, giving him a feeble smile.

"You said it!" Greg said, "Have a good one, Calhoun!"

Barney headed left for the personal facilities and armory. As soon as he got down the stairs, he could hear a rude scientist complaining about all of the morning's problems.

"I can't access my files, I can't check my mail," the scientist began

"I know, I know sir. We're addressing the problems right now. Just give us some time…." The security guard responded.

Their voices faded as Barney rounded the corner to the elevator. He pressed the down button and the doors closed.

"Man!" he thought to himself. "We must be having a whole mess of problems if it's already been _this _bad!"

He got off the elevator, rounded the corner and arrived at the armory. The guard on duty gave him his trusty sidearm and offered up the shooting range, if he wanted. Instead, he just rounded up all of the spare clips in the shooting range- better safe than sorry- and went back up the elevator to go to the locker rooms. He got to the locker rooms, put on his vest and helmet and headed back to the main area.

"Nice of you to show up, Calhoun" said the guard at the computer desk.

"But…." Barney began.

"yea, yea, I know. Problems with the access system again. Uh, oh! Now what? Looks like some people are having problems with the main access lift in sector G. Why don't you head over there and see what you can do.

Barney headed towards the tram platform on the other side of the office. There was a scientist there, sitting on the bench reading the newspaper.

"If you're waiting for the tram to sector G then you're better off just walking," he said, not even looking up, "apparently all of the trams on this side of the facility are having _problems_" he said disdainfully.

Barney sighed, realizing that it was going to be one of those days. He climbed down the ladder to the walkway below. He had to navigate his way through maintenance rooms, through a pitch black storage room with nothing but a flashlight, and across the waterway. When he got to the waterway, he pushed the button to activate a lift. It hesitated, waiting for a tram to go by. A tram rounded the corner, with only one passenger- a creepy, snake-looking man in a blue suit carrying a briefcase. He gave Barney a chilling stare, causing him to shudder slightly.

"So much for the trams being out" he thought to himself. The lift finally lowered, allowing him to continue on his journey. He went across the bridge, up the stairs and around the corner until he got to the sector G tram platform. He continued walking around the corner until he reached the sector G lift. When he arrived, he saw two scientists- an older white man with a moustache and a middle aged black man. The latter was tapping his foot impatiently, waiting for Barney.

"It's about time!" The man said, "We don't pay you people to mosey around at your own convenience. Make this thing work so we can get on with this miserable day!"

Barney looked at the fuse box, and noticed that the main operational fuse had been tripped. He flipped it back on and it lurched to life. The doors shut and it began its decent.

Meanwhile, Jenna had made her way down to the lambda labs. She was in a main observation room, which had a large teleportation orb that Jenna had set up as a way to get back to the Lambda Labs. If she ever got lost around the facility and couldn't find one of her crystal bases, her teleport device could be set to take her to this place. It was the only coordinate she could get absolutely right.

For now, however, she ignored the orb and her, Kleiner, and Azian sat around the monitors, computers, and other equipment that they would use to analyze the readings that the anti-mass spectrometer would give out when analyzing the crystal. They sat there, waiting because Gordon apparently was late. However, Gina, Collette, and Dr. Keller were also late setting up the sample and putting it through the delivery lift, so Gordon wasn't the only one holding everyone up.

Jenna, Kleiner and Azian watched the test lab on a monitor. The Anti-mass spectrometer sat there, lifeless.

"So they cranked the anti-mass spectrometer up?" Azian asked.

"Yes," answered to Kleiner, "to 105%. If you ask me, it's a critical mistake. We need to be cautious with such a pure sample."

"Great, so when the crystal destroys the anti-mass spectrometer, who's fault will that be?" Jenna said.

"I'd be more worried about it destroying a lot more" Azian said, cryptically.

Suddenly, Gordon's small figure appeared on the monitor, and Dr. Kleiner turned on the speakers to the room so they could hear what was going on.

"Alright Gordon, your suit should keep you comfortable through all this." A voice rang over a P.A. system, "The specimen should be delivered to you in a few moments. If you would be so good as to climb up and start the rotors we can break the anti-mass spectrometer to 80% and hold it there until the carrier arrives."

They watched on the monitor as Gordon climbed up to the small platform and started the rotors. The enormous machine whirled to life.

Suddenly a voice came through the radio.

"Doctor Kleiner, are you reading reasonable limits for the laser rays?" The voice asked through a radio system mounted on the control panel in front of Kleiner.

"Yes," said Kleiner, pushing a button on the control panel and talking through what looked like the speaker, "But we don't know how long it will be stable."

Suddenly, the same voice echoed through the test chamber, "Gordon, we cannot predict how long the system can operate at this level, nor how long the reading will take, please, work as quickly as you can."

The team inside the anomalous materials observation room powered up the other beams and lasers while everyone waited for the sample to arrive. The lambda team still watched.

Suddenly, on the speakers, Kleiner, Jenna, and Azian could hear the uneasy voice of a second scientist.

"It's probably not a problem….uhm, probably, but I'm showing a small discrepancy in… well, no. It's well within acceptable bounds."

Kleiner, Jenna, and Azian looked over to the scanners and data processors. Since they boosted the anti-mass spectrometer to 105% there was a slightly higher amount of negative gamma rays.

Dr. Kleiner looked panicked, "This is Isaac Kleiner in the lambda labs, we are reading unstable amounts of gamma rays! You MUST NOT PROCEED!"

No one responded. Kleiner repeated his warning, practically screaming it into the radio.

"Kleiner," said the deeper voice, "the readings are within perfectly acceptable bounds. We will proceed!"

Kleiner, Azian, and Jenna looked at the monitor with horror, the sample was coming up the lift at that exact moment. Azian ran to the phone to call Dr. Breen, hoping to cancel the experiment, but it was too late.

Gordon had just pushed the crystal into the beam and all hell broke loose.

"OH DEAR!" came a cry from the speakers

"SHUTTING DOWN…. ATTEMPTING SHUTDOWN…IT'S…" and then the monitor in the lambda labs exploded as well as all of the equipment hooked up to the anti-mass spectrometer.

Jenna and Kleiner jumped out of the seats to avoid the exploding equipment. Azian on the other side of the room slammed the phone down.

"DAMMIT! Its dead!" She yelled.

Suddenly, the orange teleport ball in the middle of the room began pulsating, and changed into an odd greenish-yellow color on its own….

…..something was coming through.

"RUN!" screamed Jenna. But it was too late. Three strange beings came through. They were brown and had three arms- one on each side, like a human, but also on in the middle of their torso. Jenna pulled out her gun, and began shooting at one that was running towards her and Kleiner. She shot it twice and it hit the floor. She turned to the second one and put a bullet right in its head, sending it flopping to the floor. The third one, however, ran behind some equipment and out of her shot range.

It was running towards Azian.

Jenna sprinted towards Azian to try and intercept it, but right as she reached Azian, the thing shot a beam of electricity straight at Azian's chest, sending her flying through the air and landing about 5 feet behind Jenna.

"NOOOOO!" Dr. Kleiner yelled.

Jenna immediately put a bullet in between its one eye.

Dr. Kleiner ran towards Azian, who was lying spread eagle and lifeless on the floor.

"OH my god! Oh dear! What did we do?!?" Kleiner sobbed.

Jenna looked away, towards the orb. It was orange again momentarily, but began to change green again and pulsate. Something else was coming.

This thing was bigger, and was wearing what looked like armor. Jenna grabbed Kleiner and shoved him towards the door.

"RUN! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!" she screamed, shoving him out of the way.

The thing aimed a strange looking weapon of sort at Kleiner, but before it shot, Jenna ran in front of him and knocked the gun out of Kleiner's path. It let out an agitated cry, and smacked her in the chest. The force of this monstrous alien sent Jenna flying through the air towards the teleportation orb. She went through the orb and was surrounded by darkness.

Meanwhile ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The elevator with Barney and the two scientists lurched and came to a halt.

"geez! Another power outage? This is going to be the longest day ever!" Barney thought to himself.

The rude scientist looked at Barney, and disdainfully said "It's probably those anomalous material people- always pushing their equipment too hard, dabbling in who knows what. I'd be surprised if there's one good brain among them."

Barney kept his retorts to himself and just remained silent.

The elevator started again, uneasily. It lurched on its way down, causing even the snappy scientist to let out a small yelp. It continued to lurch until it stopped again in between floors to where Barney could see the train rail and surrounding building outside.

There was chaos outside the elevator- the fire alarm was blaring, people were running around, strange lights were flashing all around outside- something was definitely wrong.

Suddenly, the control box in the elevator exploded, zapping the smart-ass scientist dead. He collapsed on the floor, causing the other scientist to yell out as he ducked and covered his head. Barney jumped backwards at the sound of the small explosion. The lights in the elevator went out with the blast, so Barney checked the scientist over with his flashlight-only to see the life drained from his face.

He looked back to the chaos outside of the elevator, and looked into the large observation room where a scientist was yelling something to the people outside. Suddenly, there was a bright light, and out of nowhere the strangest looking thing appeared. Barney let out another huge gasp, unable to believe his eyes. This….monster was a hideous shade of brown, and stood on its legs- like a person. In addition to its back legs, it had three clawed arms- including one coming out of its chest. The monster set its sights on the scientist.

Barney quickly pulled out his pistol and began shooting at the room to dispatch the creature. Unfortunately, it was behind bulletproof glass, so his shots had no effect. The scientist ran screaming behind a wall, out of sight, but the alien unleashed what looked like a lightning bolt from its hands.

The scientist was no longer screaming. The creature disappeared.

"That was an alien" Barney said frantically to himself, "That was a freaking honest to god Alien!"

He looked away from the observation room to the rail station outside. Suddenly, to the right hand side, Barney saw a scientist sprinting, followed by…. Barney let out a loud yell. The scientist was being chased by two strange looking things. They looked like dogs, only they had no heads- only a neck with eyes. They were absolutely aliens. They let out a strange cry and shot what looked like a shockwave, knocking the scientist down.

Barney looked towards the rail and saw another security guard call down the tunnel. The guard suddenly dove out of the way with a large scream, and the tram car flew off the tracks, clear across the room into the observation room windows, causing the windows to shatter and causing a large explosion

Barney began to panic. He tried to pry open the elevator doors, but they were trapped inside a creaking, swaying death trap. Explosions set off by the tram car began blasting all around the elevator, causing it to jump downwards with every explosion. Barney knew what was coming, and hunched down, bracing himself.

Another, final explosion sent the elevator freefalling downwards, smashing into the ground 4 floors below.

And then all was black.

The fire alarm was blaring, causing a sharp pain behind Barney's temple. He came to, an unknown time later but was unable to move. Through blurred vision, he saw an alien dog picking at a dead security guard.

Barney's head began feeling heavy again, and he laid back down and slipped into unconsciousness again.

IN ANOTHER PLACE--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jenna was breathing hard. She reached out in the darkness but touched nothing. She finally appeared in Xen, but it was a place she had never seen before. Through a green haze, she saw all sorts of alien creatures, including a large creature that shot up from the ground. It looked like the needle plant she had seen a few days ago, but this one was enormous- maybe 4 stories high and had eyes and a beak. Jenna screamed in panic, and the green creature was just about to impale her with its beak when suddenly….

…..more dark. Jenna began breathing faster and harder, until suddenly….

…..she was back at Black Mesa. She was teleported to the surface, where the military was battling an army of the brown three armed creatures. The grunt she teleported behind turned around, raised his gun and pulled the trigger, but….

…….Jenna appeared on Xen again. This time, in an area populated by small, strange yellow creatures with blue stripes on their backs. They had no heads, but a large eye in their…necks? She looked around and, to her surprise, saw Black Mesa teleportation equipment all around the surrounding area. The creatures ran towards her, but then……

…….she was back at Black Mesa, in a random office. She felt dizzy and lightheaded. She tried to walk out of the room, but before she took even one step, she passed out on the floor, completely unconscious.


	11. Strange Encounters

**Let me explain a few things.**

**Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this story so far! I appreciate constructive criticism and am humbled by your praise! : ) Thanks again!**

**From here- Since everyone has probably played Blue Shift, I'm not going to waste your time re-writing something you've already seen. Therefore, this is going to be Jenna's POV. I have doctored one scene where she meets up with Barney (which, obviously, doesn't REALLY happen in the game) and I have also included…..drum roll, please, ADRIAN SHEPHERD! Instead of Adrian Shepherd being taken by the G-man after his battle with the Gene Worm, I am writing this as if he continued on after the Gene Worm and ran into our favorite security guard!**

Jenna came to, and remembered what had happened. She rubbed her eyes, which were throbbing in her skull from a migraine. She was somewhere in sector D, lying in an administrative office.

She decided to go back to look for any survivors. She walked to the nearby tram platform, but the rail was snapped down the line, spewing sparks of electricity. She would have to go a few levels up to Breen's office, where, as she remembered, there was a mysterious tram that she had never ridden before. Hopefully it would take her somewhere else.

She went to the nearest elevator, which had toppled to the bottom of the shaft. She looked up, and realized that she had to take the ladder to the top. She began to climb, trying not to look down. She finally reached the upper administration offices, where Dr. Breen had his office. She went down the familiar corridor to his office. She saw that the door had been broken off the track. The office was abandoned.

"COWARD!" Jenna yelled in her own head, "He probably fled at the first notion of disaster!"

Suddenly, a strange noise came from behind her. She whirled around, seeing a strange crab-like alien flying towards her. Jenna dove out of the way, pulling out her gun. She shot the alien, which flopped over, dead.

She walked down the corridor, towards the upper level tram platform. When she had almost reached the door, she heard gunshots. She ran through the door, and saw a security guard taking out two of those brown aliens.

"Dr. Brandenburgh!" The guard yelled, "What are these things?" Two more teleported in, and Jenna assisted the guard in dispatching them.

When the aliens were done dropping by, the guard turned to Jenna again.

"Seriously!" he said, "What are these things?"

"I don't know," she said, "I think what happened in sector C must have created some dimensional tear and attracted the attention of….other beings."

"well, whatever they are, they have been crawling around the entire facility for the past three hours!" the guard said, sounding very panicked.

"Three hours?" Jenna said. She had been unconscious for _that_long? She desperately needed to see if Kleiner, or Barney, or Gordon, or ANYONE was still alive.

"So, where does this tram go, anyways?" Jenna asked, motioning to the stationary tram sitting at the platform.

"The….uhhh… I can't really say," the guard said.

"Seriously?" Jenna said, "I think that security has pretty much gone out of the window! Look, I need to search for survivors, but the tram below is broken, so where does this tram go?"

"The upper sector E labs, the biodome complex," the guard said.

"What's there?" Jenna asked.

"I honestly do not know," the guard responded, looking legitimately confused, "I'm just supposed to make sure that only level 6 clearance and above personnel board the tram."

"Alright, well, once I get to the upper sector C levels, there has to be a way to get to the lower sector E levels and hopefully on to a working tram to the rest of the facility… can you let me through?" Jenna asked.

The guard nodded. Jenna boarded the tram, and the guard punched in a code causing it to start. After a relatively short trip, it arrived at a platform she never had seen before. She went through the main doors, and saw that the main entrance, besides the fact that it was still under construction, looked a little bit like the lower sector E entrance.

"Now," Jenna thought, "where is an elevator?" She looked at a nearby map. This complex consisted of several levels with large observation areas in the center. It looked like there were two elevators that went to the lower sector E labs- one across the level she was on now, past an observation area, and another elevator up on the next level, and over the other way.

She went across the entrance, to a door marked "observation area entrance." She went through the door, around a hall, and came across something that shocked even her (which was rare considering the day's events).

The observation area was actually a replica of Xen, complete with the rocky terrain and plant life. Through the glass, she could see everything, including living aliens running around the large area. There were alien-dog-things running around, frolicking around needle plants. There were also three more of those crab things, but they were sitting peacefully on some of those green flower plants she saw in the Xen cave.

"Those sons of bitches!" she cursed to herself, "They KNEW about these aliens? They KNEW that Xen had hostile aliens on it, besides the plants! They used me to protect the exploration team in case those three armed freaks came or in case those huge gray alien grunts attacked!"

She felt angry and annoyed. She also felt betrayed by Dr. Kleiner, but she figured that we was not allowed to tell her the truth. As she walked down the hall, passing the observation area, a strange alien teleported in behind her. It was about 7 feet tall and had one large eye. It had what looked like a large cockroach on its arm, only the roach thing spat electricity at Jenna.

Jenna ran down the hall, disappearing behind the corner. She peeked out, and put a bullet in between its eye. It fell on its knees and flopped onto the floor. However, the roach thing was still alive, and crawled around before jumping towards her.

"AAACK!" Jenna screamed, she caught the roach, which gave her a hard shock. She threw it against a well, and it fell onto the floor and died.

Jenna finally reached the other side of the area, and went through the door. Her heart sank when she saw that the elevator was out of service. She had to go to the small lift in the middle of the laboratory, go up one level, and take an elevator on the second level down to the lower labs. She took the lift up and searched for the next elevator. When she got to it, she was relieved to see that it seemed to be working. She pressed the "down" button, and it came to her. She stepped on and pressed the lowest level button and the elevator lurched to life.

When it came to rest, she got off and realized that she was about two floors below her old sector E office. The security guard guarding the secret elevator was dead, Jenna sighed and stepped over him, continuing on. She decided that she would make a quick pit-stop to her office and grab the tao cannon stored in her old office. She walked on, and saw the dead body of a marine, still smoldering from what was probably an electricity blast. She frowned, turned the body over and read his dog tags.

Jenna gasped. Her sector-the HECU- was dispatched for this job. She looked above his body, seeing that his shotgun was laying there. Grateful, Jenna grabbed it, cocked it and prepared for a match-up with whatever killed her comrade.

When she rounded the corner, her instincts were right. A brown alien was waiting, but before he could shoot his electricity at her, she blasted it with both barrels of the shotgun, sending it flying backwards. She went up two nearby flights of stairs, finally arriving at the level where she used to do weapons research. The lobby had three dead marines, and Jenna grabbed some more shotgun shells as well as a sub-machine gun. She frowned when she realized they were more HECU marines. She walked into her office, opened the safe and grabbed the tao cannon. As soon as she grabbed it, another brown alien appeared. She made quick work of it, blasting it with the powerful weapon.

Jenna sprinted out of her office to the tram platform, only to be annoyed to see the rail was, again, snapped in a small segment right in front of it. She knew that she would have to make her way on foot to the next nearest platform, and hope that the next section was still unscathed. She climbed the service ladder down, and made her way through the maintenance passage. It seemed to go on forever, and she had to battle alien crabs and brown aliens randomly teleporting in.

She finally arrived in the far end of sector F- the lambda labs. It was a far reaching part of the labs that she had never seen before. At the tram station, however, there was a radio communication station. She tried to radio out for help, but couldn't get anything. She radioed within the facility, which was fortunately still working. She radioed around, hoping to find Dr. Kleiner.

"Dr. Kleiner? Doc? Doctor Kleiner? Are you there" She said, changing the frequency every so often and repeating herself. Finally, there came another voice,

"Jenna? Jenna is that you?" It was Eli Vance.

"Dr. Vance! Yes, it's me! Are you alright?" Jenna said.

"Yes, I'm alright. Alyx and I found Dr. Kleiner up and are all hiding in the sector B maintenance area. We can't talk long, though. The military will find us with this frequency"

"Alright, just stay there and I'll come and get you guys" Jenna said, "I'm kind of far off, and the trams are mostly down, so it might not be for quite awhile, though. Find somewhere safe to hide, preferably somewhere you can hide for a few hours."

"Ok, will do. Good luck and we'll see you in a few" said Eli.

Jenna but the radio back down. She looked at a map on the wall. She could take the sector F tram to the main transit station. From there she had easy access to sector B, if the trams were still running in the central station. If not, she would have to make her way on foot, and probably through the ventilation systems. She boarded the tram that was sitting there waiting. She pushed the button for the main transit station. Surprisingly, the sector F lambda rail was relatively unscathed. She reached the central transit station, which was a mess of HECU soldiers and alien creatures. Jenna noticed that the rails were down, and decided to skip the large battle in the station and, instead, go down to the maintenance canal to find another route to sector B.

She made her way through the maintenance canal until she reached a dead end. Frustrated, she looked at the map on the wall, but it wasn't a map. It was actually blueprints for the maintenance personnel. They only showed the ventilation system that winded around the main transit area, down wards (where she was now) and over to the very lower levels of sector C. Jenna knew that from there she would be able to make an easy path to her colleagues in hiding. She looked down at the vent on the floor.

"Well, if Gordon and Barney can do it, then I can, too," Jenna thought to herself.

She pulled her mask out of her storage belt and put it on. She turned on the night vision goggles, pried off the vent and began her journey. She crouch-walked through the vent system, which was annoyingly infested with the alien head huggers. She took them out slowly, and gradually made her way deeper and deeper into the base. As she journeyed on, she could hear battles all around her. She came around a corner, hearing people fighting aliens below her. Unfortunately, a head hugger jumped out from around the corner, causing Jenna to instinctually shoot it with her gun. The battle below her became quiet, and she could hear voices below her.

"Did you hear that?" A male voice said.

"The vent" whispered a female voice.

Suddenly, the vent began to get riddled with bullets. Jenna tried to climb away from the gunfire, but her climbing over the weakened vent caused it to collapse underneath her, and she plummeted to the ground. She was immediately surrounded by 4 people in black outfits that covered their entire bodies, as well as black masks covering their entire heads- Black Ops. Jenna had recognized them from her own military training. She herself was being scouted to become a black Op sniper (at least that's what her squad commander said), but she was reassigned to Black Mesa instead when she was injured.

They reloaded their guns and were about to shoot her to kingdom come when suddenly a troop of those large alien grunts with the metal plates on them teleported it and began shooting strange bee-like creatures at everything in sight. The black ops dispersed, and Jenna quickly sprang up from the floor, climbed onto different crates, hopping from one crate to another until she could reach the vent. She hoisted herself back into the vent and pulled out her shotgun.

The battle raged on below her until there was one alien grunt and one male assassin left. The assassin tried running from the alien, but the alien picked up the man and threw him through some wooden storage crates, killing him. Jenna noticed a crossbow was in the crate, along with probably 6 clips of arrows. Jenna cocked her shotgun and repositioned herself in the vent, and with one hand she lowered herself down from the vent while shooting the grunt with the shotgun in her other hand.

The alien went down hard, so Jenna dropped down, grabbed the crossbow and arrows and loaded a clip of 5 into the gun. She aimed at a wooden crate, and shot the gun to get a feel for it. The crossbow was very powerful, splintering the crate into a million pieces with just one shot. Impressed, Jenna strapped it to another strap on her back and hoisted herself back into the vent.

"OK," she thought, "this crossbow should make easy work of those black op freaks!"

Jenna continued through the vent, turning left, right, left, left, and right again as the vent did (luckily, it didn't splinter off into different pathways, so it was an easy journey). She finally saw a light on the end of the vent, and realized that she was on the ground level of the sector C lower maintenance area.

Jenna reached the end and crawled out of the vent, onto the floor of the empty hallway. She took off her mask and began to listen intently. She could hear voices in the distance. They were muffled at first, so she sprinted towards them. She rounded a corner, hearing a familiar voice.

"I don't know how to get to the surface from here, PAL! I'm just as lost as you are!"

It was Barney's voice, sounding slightly shaky.

She continued down the hall, stopping just behind the last corner. She peeked around the corner and saw Barney, with blood on his cheek, laying on the floor while an HECU marine pointed a shotgun at him.

Jenna thought fast. She quickly pulled out the crossbow, looked through the scope, aiming at the gun, and shot it straight out of the marine's hand with much force. The gun landed with a loud *clunk* on the ground about 2 feet away from the marine.

"DON'T MOVE, or the next one will go through your facemask into your skull!" Jenna yelled when she saw the marine attempt to bend down and get his gun back.

"Jenna?" Barney yelled, seeing a figure that gave him hope.

Jenna ignored him for the moment, focusing only on the standoff with the masked marine.

The marine straightened up, looking at Jenna.

"Brandenburgh?" Came a familiar voice. The marine's voice was slightly distorted by his mask, but it was still recognizable… could it be….?

The marine took off his mask. He had brown hair, beautiful blue eyes, a prominent pointed nose and a squared chin. His very handsome features were too familiar to Jenna. It was none other than….

"ADRIAN!" Jenna gasped, "ADRIAN SHEPHERD?" Jenna dropped her crossbow and ran towards the marine. She jumped into the marine's arms. He smiled wide and began to laugh.

"I can't believe I found you! I knew you were stationed at this hellhole, but GOOD GOD! WHAT HAPPENED?" Adrian Shepherd said, hugging her tight.

"Oh god, Adrian!" Jenna said, smiling at him, "I never thought I would see you here! I don't know what's going on. There was a huge accident, and I think it attracted the attention of these…alien things."

"Jenna?" came Barney's exasperated voice as he slowly got up from the floor. He could feel the anger rising up to his face, "What the hell? You know this guy?"

Adrian looked at the security guard and then back to Jenna, "you didn't tell your little buddy here about _me?_I'm slightly offended."

Jenna laughed, "Yea, sorry about that. If it were at all possible, I'm sure your ego would be much bruised right now" she said, giving Adrian a friendly punch on the arm.

Adrian suddenly got very serious, "Alright, look, we need to get to the surface. When we were ordered to pull out, government black ops were sent to stop the infestation, as well as silence anyone left down here. They even had a nuke! I shut it off, but I don't think that they are looking to preserve this place. If I know black ops, then I know that if that bomb doesn't go off, they'll probably just bomb this place from the air. We don't have much time-only about as long as it will take them to realize the bomb was deactivated and to call in aerial reinforcements. We need to go."

"You're right," Jenna agreed, "but I want to gather up some survivors- Dr. Kleiner, Eli Vance and Alyx, who are in hiding. They're not too far from here, so we can gather them up as we get to the surface. Can you help us, Barney?"

"I'm not going with _you_," Barney said bitterly, refusing to look at Jenna, "You are the cause of this whole mess!"

"What?" Jenna gasped at Barney, "Are you kidding me? How could you say that?"

"You were working in the lambda labs, you collected the crystal, you unleashed these alien freaks!" Barney said, "you knew what you were doing, and all of the innocent bystanders are being slaughtered by aliens because you were playing God and tampering with alien life!"

"Barney," Jenna snapped, getting slightly annoyed, "You know that's not true!"

"You were part of that team, right? That collected the crystal from the alien planet?" Barney said, "Yea, one of the scientists told me about your guys' multiple explorations to 'Xen' to get these things. You were jumping around planets and messing with aliens!"

"Barney!" Jenna responded, "I didn't know that there were aliens on that planet. They didn't tell me _anything!_I was just following the orders I was given! If I knew that there were any living creatures on that planet, I never would have been part of this whole mess! You know that."

"I'm not so sure I do," Barney said, coldly.

"Adrian, can you give us a second?" Jenna asked, "Just keep a look out."

Adrian looked annoyed, but walked away to the end of the hall, keeping guard.

Jenna pulled Barney aside, out of Adrian's earshot, "What is your problem? Why are you acting so cold to me? You know I didn't do anything intentionally wrong!"

"NO I DON'T!" Barney yelled, "I know _nothing_about you! I don't know anything about your past, or your time chortling around with your super-aggressive freak friend over there" he said, motioning his head towards the marine pacing the hall "I know nothing about you!"

"Is this what you're so pissed about?" Jenna asked incredulously, "You're upset about me having a past with _Adrian?_ So what? We are friends. We were in the same UNIT! We were in the same unit for three years, after his basic training, and after that I was assigned to come here, and I never spoke to him again. So what? I didn't bore you will all my boring marine corp. stories and now all of a sudden you think I'm some rogue scientist running around pissing off alien life forms for fun?"

Adrian began to walk back "We got to get moving, I don't want to stand in one place for too long! Can you soothe the baby later?"

Barney glared at the marine, and then looked back at Jenna, "No, I don't think you're a rogue scientist," he paused before glaring at Jenna, and through gritted teeth he finally said, "I think that you are a marine grunt in a lab coat _pretending_ to be a scientist."

Jenna's heart broke, and the expression on her face matched it. He had dug into her out of hatred. Jenna looked shocked and offended, causing Adrian to shove the butt of his shotgun into Barney's chest, knocking the security guard onto the floor. Adrian pointed the gun at Barney's chest.

"ADRIAN!" Jenna screamed, Adrian ignored her and looked at Barney.

"Listen, pal," he growled, "This is not her fault. You don't know anything about her assignments, or how much she knew. I'm not going to sit around and listen to you insult her. She is has a PhD- she is a damned fine scientist and a damned fine marine. What are you? A dropout from donut dunker university?"

Barney said nothing. He just glared at Shepherd.

"Now, here's the new order of things, you're gonna listen to us, or….not" he said, cocking the shotgun, "your choice."

"Adrian, CUT IT OUT!" Jenna yelled.

"yea, whatever, _pal"_Barney hissed, "Your only solution is to silence any innocent bystanders, isn't it? How many helpless scientists have you murdered today?"

"For your information" Adrian said, "I haven't touched a single one of your idiot scientist friends. That wasn't _my_orders. My orders are to abandon this place and get the hell out of here."

"Adrian!" Jenna finally snapped, pulling the gun out of Barney's path. She offered Barney a hand, trying to help him to his feet, but he refused it. He slowly got up, brushing off his pants.

"C'mon, Barney," Jenna pleaded, "This is ridiculous! You know me! You know I wouldn't do anything to hurt innocent people! I had no idea about any sort of hostile alien beings—I was manipulated by BREEN!"

"I'm not going with you two" Barney said, sounding very bitter, "I'll find my own way to the surface."

Jenna sighed, looking down at her feet.

She paused a moment, before leaning closer to Barney, saying very softly, "I know that you are just upset. You know that I didn't intentionally mean to be involved in something that killed my own friends. I just hope that one day you can forgive me for unintentionally taking part in this disaster, and forgive me for not being able to tell you everything. I didn't_want_ to keep any secrets from you, but there were certain details about my life that I was obligated not to tell anyone. I hope one day you can understand that and remember the kind of person I really am."

And with that, she pulled off the necklace from her neck, and placed it carefully on the floor in front of Barney's feet. She looked at him one more time, with small tears welling up in her eyes. She walked back to her dropped crossbow, picked it up and looked at Adrian.

"C'mon, Adrian," she said with another large sigh, "There's nothing else for us here."

As they walked away, she looked back at Barney one last time, and he just stood there with an angry, stone look on his face.

When they disappeared out of sight, Barney sighed, fighting back tears. He bit his cheeks as he bent down, picked up the necklace Jenna laid at his feet, and put it securely in his pocket.

He walked in the opposite direction. His fear and anxiety was now replaced by overwhelming feelings of regret and sadness. He had a sinking feeling that he would never see the woman he loved so much ever again.


	12. Fighting to the Surface

Jenna and Adiran battled their way through the maintenance walks since most of the trams were out of service. They finally reached the far side of sector B, which suffered horrible damage. The maintence access way was completely blocked off by debris; most of it was huge and unmovable. Jenna knew that she would have to go through the sector B parking garage, to the surface, across the sector B surface and back down again to find her friends in hiding.

She turned to Adrian, "We're gonna have to make out way to the surface, go across and back down again so I can gather my friends."

Adrian frowned at Jenna, "You never were one for making things easy,"

Jenna smiled, "Oh, stop whining. Are you coming or not?"

Adrian nodded feebly, "I guess, but you owe me a beer for this."

They climbed the service ladder up to the main area. The lower areas of Sector B consisted mostly of water and sewage pumps as well as huge coolant pumps and air pumps that controlled all of the ventilation in the facility. There were underground parking structures above that, and the surface consisted of living areas on one side and old decommissioned military equipment on the other side. The other side of sector B was where the maintenance areas were. They included the equipment that controlled the waste and air pumps, such as generators and huge gear boxes, so it made for an easy hiding place for her colleagues and their young companion.

Jenna knew that there was a maintenance elevator that led to the parking garages, but guessed it would probably be out of service due to the huge amount of damage in the area. Sure enough, when they reached the elevator, not only was the elevator stuck at the top of the shaft, but the ladder was broken, just swinging wildly. Jenna frowned. She was growing weary of everything going wrong. She noticed a large vent on the ground, and sighed, realizing her fate.

"The elevator is broken. We're gonna have to go through the vent to the parking garages," Jenna told Adrian, trying to sound casual.

"Are you freaking kidding me?"Adrian said, sounding annoyed, "I've done enough vent crawling for a lifetime. Those vents are infested with those alien face huggers and I'm a lot bigger than you are, so it's a lot harder for me to move around."

"yea, but this one is a LOT bigger that the other vents," Jenna pleaded, "It has to cool the parking structures, so the vent is enormous. Big enough for both of us to crouch and walk through, I would guess."

Adrian looked very upset. He smashed the vent open with the butt of his shotgun before strapping it to his back and pulling out a more suitable desert eagle. He pulled his mask back on and turned on the night vision goggles and went through the vent on all fours, without saying a word.

Jenna put on her mask and followed. The vent had a slight incline, and winded around in different directions. It was relatively peaceful, with the only sounds being Jenna's occasional directions.

"Left" "Right" "Straight" she would say, when there would be a split in the vents.

They had finally reached the parking structures when suddenly, out of the quiet, as they were about to round a right hand corner, a crab creature jumped out and attacked Adrian's face. He howled loudly, and smashed it with his gun, being that it was too close to shoot without accidentally shooting himself. Adrian looked down the vent, and saw another crab heading their direction. He made quick work of it with a bullet before it tried to lunge at them.

Unfortunately, something outside of their vent safe haven got annoyed at the noise, and began smashing the walls of the parking structure they were hovering over, causing the entire vent to shake. The vent cracked and through a small tear Jenna could see what it was.

She whispered a soft "Oh, my GOD!" Adrian looked through a crack as well. He just heaved a large sigh.

It was the biggest alien yet. This gargantuan was blue, with black markings all over. It had two claw like hands, as well as two claws coming out of its gut. It had gnarly looking teeth on its mouth and two beady eyes, which were currently looking around to pick a fight.

Three of the alien grunts teleported in, and began shooting at the big blue badass. It ran over to where they were, surprising both Adrian and Jenna with its speed and agility. It shot what looked like heat out of its huge claw hands, making the grunts drop down to the ground almost instantly.

"Do you think we can outrun that?" Adrian asked, looking back at Jenna

"I don't know, but it doesn't look like it's gonna be easy to take out, if we find out that we can't." Jenna responded, trying desperately not to talk above a tiny whisper.

Suddenly, four black humvees came roaring onto the scene, dispatching a large troop of black ops. Their SMG's didn't seem to have an effect of big blue, making Jenna more terrified. However, Jenna did notice that when a black op hit it with a grenade, it seemed to flinch and get annoyed. Unfortunately, when it was annoyed or hurt, it smashed the walls angrily, making the vents protecting Jenna and Adrian weaker and weaker.

"I have an idea," Jenna finally said, realizing that it they didn't think of something fast, the gargantua was going to make quick work of them, too.

"What?" Adiran whispered.

"Give me your satchel charges," Jenna responded.

"Why?" Adrian protested quietly.

"Because I said so" Jenna snapped back, "Stop talking or it'll hear us!"

Adrian reluctantly handed over his satchels. Jenna motioned him back, and she quietly continued on without him. She passed over the gargantua's head, trying not to even breathe. She finally reached a grate, which she quietly pulled off and set on the other side. Every so often the gargantua would stomp loudly or let out an agitated roar, and every time he did, Jenna dropped a satchel charge behind him. She successfully got four behind him, covering up the *thunk* of the charge dropping with his own noises.

She began to crawl out of the way, but the vent caved in slightly, letting out a loud *clunk*. The gargantua smashed the vent, causing Jenna to fall out.

As she plummeted the 20 or so feet to the bottom, she quickly hit the remote detonator for the charges, causing all of them to explode at once. The force of the blast completely annihilated the big blue badass, but sent Jenna flying across the structure, landing on the floor unconscious.

"JEN!" Adrian yelled. He saw her land hard onto the floor, and it looked like she wasn't breathing. Adrian kicked the already weak vent apart, and lowered himself onto a car below, and then onto the floor. He sprinted over to her and finally arrived at her side. She was face down and, to Adrian's complete horror….

…..she had stopped breathing.

**To Be Continued……….**


	13. Rescuing our Friends

Adrian quickly turned Jenna over, unhooked her vest to expose her chest. Her chest had some major bruises from what were likely multiple broken bones. Adrian immediately began administering CPR. He breathed into her mouth twice, and pumped her heart four times. He did this for three rounds before Jenna gave an enormous cough and the blue in her face was replaced by white- still not great, but better than dead. Her eyes remained closed, and she let out a large moan.

"OH my god! Wha…..where am I?" Jenna moaned.

She couldn't open her eyes. She saw nothing. Was she dead? Was she…..

"You're still in the garage," came Adrian Shephed's voice, sounding very shaky and panicked.

"Oh," Jenna said. So she wasn't dead. She finally began to open her eyes and saw Adrian above her, cradling her in his arms. He looked down at her, and she could see the relief in his face turned quickly into annoyance.

"Why would you set off the satchels when you were right there?!?" Adrian argued, "Have you forgotten EVERYTHING you were trained? If it weren't for the massive blue thing in the way, you would be in a million pieces painted on the walls! What is your problem?"

"Leave me alone, Adrian," Jenna said, rubbing her head as she slowly sat up, "If I didn't set off the charges, it would have moved out of the blast radius and probably would have crushed me to death."

Adrian slowly helped Jenna to her feet. She let out a massive cry of pain- a few of her rips were cracked, she felt her collarbone and felt that it was probably broken, and her bad knee was throbbing with the most intense pain she ever felt there before.

"We have to get some med kits" Jenna said, "Maybe the black ops have some in the back of their trucks."

Jenna limped over to the trucks with the help of Adiran, who was also carrying her PCV in his other hand. Sure enough, there were many med kits in the back of the trucks, as well as guns, ammo, and other supplies.

Jenna took the med kits, took the morphine and began wrapping her wounds. She felt a lot better, but knew that she would have to get to a black mesa wall-mounted med kit to actually _be _better. She, again, wondered what was in the fluid that the machine injected them with, but didn't care at the moment because it meant healed bones.

Jenna put her PCV back on, which felt heavy on her hurt collar bone. She searched the last truck, finding a rocket launcher and three rockets.

"Score," said Adrian, seeing the rocket launcher in her hands.

"Can you carry the extra rockets?" Jenna asked. Adrian nodded, taking the extra rockets and putting them in his pack.

They went across the parking garage to the elevator to take them to the surface. Jenna pushed the button for the surface. And it took them to the top. They emerged out of the elevator, past the metal doors and out to daylight. Suddenly, there was a large boom and they saw a black tank shooting rockets their way. Jenna and Adrian dove behind cover, just missing the explosion behind them. Jenna looked over at Adrian across the way.

"Isn't that a little much for two marines?" Jenna yelled.

"They must be really looking to take everyone out. Black ops are all about discretion. We are now considered 'loose ends'," Adrian said.

"Well, whatever. Take it out. I can't shoot this with my bad collar bone," Jenna yelled tossing Adrian the rocket launcher.

Adrian loaded the gun, peeked around his cover and shot a rocket at the tank. It was a direct hit. He began to reload, but quickly ducked behind his cover again to avoid a return rocket. He peeked around the corner again and let off the second shot, which unfortunately missed.

"DAMN!" Adrian yelled, ducking again behind his cover. He reloaded the third rocket, aimed at the tank and shot, getting a second direct hit.

"I'm out," he yelled.

Jenna pulled a grenade out of her pocket, pulled the pin and hurled it towards the tank. It exploded, finally causing the tank to explode. Three black ops spilled out of the tank, badly injured. Adrian and Jenna both sprinted forward, taking the black ops out with their shotguns.

Jenna and Adrian made their way through the living area on the surface, battling the occasional unfortunate soul to fall victim to the alien head huggers.

They reached the old decommissioned military areas, and they slowly made their way across the field, battling black ops, aliens, and sometimes, much to Jenna and Adrian's pleasure, Black Ops fighting aliens. They utilized all of the old equipment to duck and avoid gunfire, so Jenna and Adrian were able to reach the maintenance access area without being too badly injured. When they went into the entrance area, Jenna was happy to see a Black Mesa wall-mounted medkit near the elevator. Jenna injected herself with the magic serum and instantly felt near new, save for some minor pain in two or three ribs.

They took the elevator down to the lowest level of the maintence areas, where Jenna's friends were hiding nearby. They were initially dropped into a storage room, and Jenna saw the hallway that presumably led to the machine room where her friends were waiting. Jenna started to walk forward, but Adrian pulled her collar, keeping her from going forward.

"wha…" Jenna began, but Adrian quickly motioned for her to be quiet.

She could hear the sound of footsteps, muffled but still noticeable to a trained ear.

Jenna looked around and saw a clear way upwards. She stepped slowly backwards and looked at Adrian.

"Just like old times?" Jenna said.

Adrian smiled, remembering what she was talking about. He nodded, and motioned for her to go ahead.

Jenna dashed almost silently behind a crate. She climbed up it, ending up on top of it. She stealthily jumped to another crate, but behind a huge crate. She climbed onto the tallest crate, and pulled out her crossbow. She loaded a full clip into the intake, and nodded at Adrian.

Jenna looked at the Black Ops, who were scanning the floor, missing her up above them. She aimed at one of the females, and squeezed the trigger. The arrow hit the assassin in the head, and she covered her own mouth as she fell to the floor and died. Jenna hated them, but she had to admit that they were hardcore. They muffled their own cries of pain as they died as not to give up their location.

The assassin was so quiet that none of the other Black Ops heard. She aimed at a second one, and shot it in the head again. Unfortunately, this one let out a guttural yell, and the Black Ops began swarming Jenna's perch.

Adrian ran out of the elevator, shooting the Black Ops that approached Jenna's hiding spot. Jenna quickly dropped her crossbow and drew out her trusty shotgun. She jumped down onto another nearby crate, shooting some Black Ops on the ground. Jenna jumped from crate to crate shooting Black Ops from a higher vantage point, while Adrian cleared them out with his SMG on the ground.

When all of the Black Ops were taken care of, Jenna jumped down from her crates and walked over to Adrian.

"Nice shooting. I almost forgot how great of a team we made," Jenna joked.

"Yea, that crossbow was nice and quiet – but you looked like a magician firing at an apple on your assistant's head," Adrian said.

"Oh, please, it worked and you are grateful for it," Jenna said.

They continued on through the corridor, down the hall. They finally reached the machine room, which, much to Jenna's relief, looked like it was untouched and relatively unscathed.

"Doctor Kleiner, Dr. Vance?" Jenna yelled.

A small beep came from a small storage closet. The door slid open, revealing Eli, Dr. Kleiner and Alyx all crammed into the small closet.

Jenna walked over to the closet, looking at the inhabitants. Dr. Kleiner was looking especially pale, shaking slightly, Dr. Vance was holding Alyx in his arms, keeping her calm, and Alyx was looking very strong, although it was obvious that she was crying softly.

"So they're storing some back-up scientists down here?" she joked, pretending to be talking to Adrian, "Hopefully these ones can actually clean up this mess."

"Actually," said Dr. Kleiner, "the satellite that Gordon launched isn't performing as we thought it would. The military has done….god knows with the science team guiding the satellite. If we can stop by sector A, Eli and I might be able to get the coordinates right to align the satellite with the other equipment to reverse the dimensional rift."

"Alright," Jenna said, "Sector A isn't too far, I think the trams in this area are even working. We'll go to the satellite communication center and try to fix this."

"Are we gonna find mommy, too, Daddy?" Alyx asked, her small voice shaking.

Jenna's heart broke. She felt guilty that she couldn't have saved Azian. She didn't look Eli in the face as he answered her.

"She'll meet up with us later, Baby. Don't worry." Eli said.

"Let's get moving, shall we?" said Adrian, trying to break the awkward moment.

Jenna nodded. "By the way," she added, looking at the three squatters, "Alyx, Eli, Issac? This is my old friend from the HECU, Adrian Shepherd. Adrian? This is Dr. Isaac Kleiner, Dr. Eli Vance, and his daughter Alyx."

Eli put Alyx down and offered Adrian an uneasy hand, which Adrian shook. Alyx, on the other hand, went up to Adrian and kicked him in the knee cap.

"OW!" Adrian howled, "What was that for?"

"ALYX!" Eli snapped, "Don't do that!"

"You guys were mean to me and my daddy! You tried to hurt us!" Alyx yelled at Adrian.

Adrian looked down at her, he was confused at first, but he suddenly looked very sincere, "I'm sorry. I promise it won't happen again."

"Good!" Alyx said, crossing her arms. Adrian couldn't help but smile. "Alright, now _let's get moving!_" He finally said.

They went back through the hall, passing the dead head huggers. Suddenly, Adrian stopped and looked back at the group.

"She might want to…cover her eyes," he said, nodding towards the toddler.

Jenna knelt down to Alyx's level. "Alyx, honey?" Jenna said, "Can you do me a favor? Can you close your eyes, just for a minute? I promise I will make it up to you."

Alyx nodded, putting her hands over her tightly closed eyes.

Jenna hoisted her up into her arms and continued through the storage room, past all of the dead assassins who were bleeding on the floor. They got into the elevator, and Jenna told Alyx she could uncover her eyes.

"This is the elevator we came down in," Alyx said, observantly.

"Good memory, Al" said Jenna "We have to go back up it so we can get out of here."

Dr. Kleiner pushed the button marked LL2 "This level has a tram platform that will take us to sector A" he said.

They reached lower level 2, and made their way to the tram platform. They were able to reach the platform, punch in the "A" button, and the tram began on its journey.

The intercom announcements were strange, jumpy and interrupted from the occasional power surge. The tram lurched uneasily, causing Alyx to whine in Jenna's arms. She tried to comfort the young toddler.


	14. Daylight at last!

The tram finally reached sector A. Jenna's heart gave a hard jerk in her chest. This was the hazard course sector, where she and Barney competed with each other only days ago, although it seemed like years ago now. They got off the tram and began walking towards the satellite communications center. They were walking down a hallway when a brown alien teleported in behind them. Alyx screamed, and Jenna whirled around. Without even dropping the little girl, she held Alyx in one arm while pulling out her gun with the other hand and firing at the alien, killing it.

Alyx began to cry at the loud sound. Jenna bounced her and tried to comfort her.

"Hey! C'mon, kiddo!" Jenna said, rubbing Alyx's tears from her eyes, "Don't cry! It's just a noise! But you were _such _a good teammate! You saved my life!" Alyx stopped wailing and looked at Jenna. She gave a small sniffle.

"There ya go! That's better," Jenna continued, "Now, can you do me a favor, sweetie? Can you be my teammate and be my second pair of eyes?" Alyx nodded. "Alright, let's get moving then. Keep a watch out for me" Jenna said, giving Alyx's hair a small ruffle.

They continued on until finally reaching the satellite communications center. Right before they rounded the corner to the main computer area, they could hear voices.

Jenna put Alyx down. "Alright, kiddo, me and my friend Adrian are gonna scout ahead. Keep watch over your daddy and Dr. Kleiner, ok?"

Alyx nodded.

Jenna and Adrian carefully rounded the corner. They were immediately surrounded by three more HECU soldiers.

"SHEPHERD!" said one, who looked like he was an engineer. "Woah, buddy. I'm glad to see you!"

"Yea, we thought you were some more of those masked black op freaks!" said a heavy gunner.

"Hey! Who is this? And why is she wearing a PCV?" asked the third, a medic.

"This is Corporal Jenna Brandenburgh. She is stationed here for research. She was a sniper, but left before you guys joined" Adrian responded.

"My god! _You're _Corporal Brandenburgh? Man! You're legendary!" the engineer said, taking Jenna's hand and shaking it hard.

"Uh, Thanks. So we're making our way to the surface to get the hell out of here, right after we do some work in here, you guys want to join us?" Jenna asked.

"YES!" all three of them cried. Jenna jogged back to the three people waiting in the hall, and brought them into the room.

"Aww, man! What are we? The local babysitting service?" the heavy gunner said. Adrian gave him a sharp look, and he immediately shut up.

Dr. Kleiner and Eli poured over the computers, while Alyx stayed obediently by Eli's side.

Suddenly, Dr. Kleiner broke the silence, "this is odd," he said softly.

"What?" Jenna asked. She walked over and looked at the readings on the computers. It looked like someone was attempting to set up a teleportation portal on the surface outside the main entrance and parking structure on the facility.

"Someone's making themselves an escape route." Jenna said, looking at Kleiner and Eli.

"It has to be Dr. Rosenberg," said Kleiner, "he's the only one left here who knows how to make a portal that accurate."

"Ok," Jenna said, "That's not too far from here. We'll make our way to the surface, and get to the escape area. We'll try to catch them before they all take off."

Dr. Kleiner and Eli finished on the computers. "We aligned the satellite now," Eli said, "let's just hope it works to stopping this whole mess."

"Ok, Jenna said, "we're gonna have to make our way to the surface. It's not gonna be easy because the elevators are probably out. We'll have to take the maintenance access ways."

They made their way through the access ways, battling hordes of aliens of all forms on the way. The aliens were a lot easier to deal with, with the addition of three more soldiers on their side. They reached a large storage area that had a small equipment lift that would take them to the surface. Unfortunately, as was the case with many storage areas, the Black Ops were using this storage area as a staging point. The five troops ran forward, and Jenna called back to the three others.

"STAY BACK! GET BEHIND SOME COVER!" She yelled, as she ran forward, pulling out her shotgun.

Jenna ran around a corner right into a female black op. The female kicked Jenna in the face and jumped backwards.

"Oh, you stupid _bitch!" _Jenna yelled. She shook off the pain and aimed her shotgun, shooting the assassin in the chest. Jenna ran around another corner, and took out a male black op before he even saw her. She could hear the other soldiers working on other black ops, so she doubled back to provide support.

She came into the main area, where the gunner and engineer were shooting a group of black ops and the medic was reloading his pistol. The black ops were ducking behind crates, so Jenna took out a grenade and pulled the pin before tossing it their direction. She knew that they would run away from the grenade, but it flushed them out of their hiding spots, making them easy targets to pick off.

She heard Adrian on the other side of the room fire his shotgun, and then the room went silent.

"Recon, check in!" Yelled Adrian

"Area secure!" Jenna yelled back.

Jenna sprinted back to where the scientists and toddler were hiding. She ordered Alyx to cover her eyes again. She carried Alyx to the lift, and everyone else piled on, standing close. Eli pressed the up button, and the lift began to climb to the surface.

When they reached the surface, they quickly dispatched a few brown aliens before regrouping. There was a military humvee still running about 5 yards away.

"Alright! Our ticket out of here!" said the heavy gunner, "Adrian, let's get the hell out of here!"

Noticing that there was no room for all of the group in the truck, Adrian shoot his head, "You guys go ahead, I'm going to help Brandenburgh get these guys out of here. I'll find my own way out."

Eli pointed out the best way to get out of the facility, and the three soldiers got into the car and sped away.

"You didn't have to stay," Jenna said to Adrian.

"Well, I promised you I would help you rescue these guys" Adrian mumbled, "I'm not gonna bail on you now."

"Well, thank you. I really appreciate it." Jenna said.

They continued over the surface, making their way to the entrance on the very far side of sector A. They came across a black op station, but it was abandoned.

"They must have dispersed and set up assaults on different parts of this area" Jenna said. She climbed into the back of one of their trucks, where there were assignment papers laying on the floor. She picked them up, and was shocked to see the results.

She read the briefing, revealing that the black ops' main objective was to kill her and Gordon. There were pictures of them attached and it listed all of their background stats. Beyond that, their objectives were to kill everyone in the base, dispatch of all of the aliens, and there was an assignment for a "delta" team to set off the bomb Adrian peered over her shoulder, reading the papers as well.

"Why would killing you and Freeman be their main priority?" Adrian asked.

"Because Gordon was in the test chamber and… DAMN IT!" she said, remembering what she did to warrant such heat, "I signed off on the sample that caused this whole thing."

She stepped out of the truck, throwing the papers onto the floor.

"What's wrong?" Eli asked.

"They're targeting me because my name is attached to the crystal." Jenna said, frowning.

"Oh dear!" Kleiner said.

Suddenly, a bullet wizzed by them, hitting the floor.

Jenna shoved the three civilians behind a truck, and pulled out her SMG.

She peered around the corner. Adrian was hiding behind another truck.

"I can't see them!" He yelled, "These black ops are SMART!"

Jenna ran out from behind the truck, sprinted into the open and behind another truck. She saw that they were hiding behind rocks. She decided to flush them out again with an SMG and she and Adrian took them out when they were forced out of their hiding spots.

When they were all dead, Jenna looked up, and saw that the open surface area was surrounded by rocky hills, perfect for scouting ahead.

"Ok. This is getting old. But they are after me. So here's what we're gonna do." She said, "Me and Adrian are going to go up into the hills and scout ahead. That way we'll be out of sight, and I won't attract attention to us. We'll clear the path, and I'll holler at you guys when the next section is clear. We'll go about ten yards at a time. Take cover anywhere you can while we scout ahead again. We'll repeat that until we get to the escape area, ok?"

"Got it." Eli said.

Jenna looked at Eli, and saw that Kleiner was trying to keep Alyx preoccupied by telling her stuff about science. Jenna took advantage of Alyx's distraction to talk to Eli.

"Look, Eli, about Azian" Jenna said softly, Eli looked very pained, "I tried everything I could to save her, but… the aliens just….came out of nowhere. I couldn't…. I'm so sorry!" she said, as tears began to well up in her eyes.

"It's not your fault." Eli said, touching her shoulder, "It's no one's fault. No one knew this would happen. I'm just glad you, Izzy, and Alyx are ok. Thank you for coming back for us. If it weren't for you, we would probably be dead by now."

Jenna nodded, and gave a small sniffle. "Ok, we'll go ahead now" Jenna said.

Jenna and Adrian climbed into the hills, out of sight. They slowly made their way across the large canyon. Jenna and Adrian cleared the path of Aliens and black ops, and Jenna would holler at Eli and Isaac to run forward, while Eli carried Alyx who was covering her eyes. They repeated this about 8 or 9 times before they saw a team of scientists hot wiring an SUV by a main entrance up ahead. Jenna saw Barney was part of the group, and she resisted the urge to run to him.

She instead, focused her attention on the three people below. She walked just into their view and crouched down so that only they could see her.

"Alright, guys. They are about 7 or 8 yards away, and the path is clear. Barney is up there, so yell for him to give you cover fire if any aliens pop in. Adrian and I are going to run the other way, to draw attention away from you guys, ok?"

"What?" Eli demanded, "You're not coming with us? That's ridiculous!"

"Listen, Eli. The black ops are after me. I don't want to get into the car, only to have it blown up by a helicopter a mile down the road. We'll draw their attention away from you, and find our own way out. We'll meet up with you later, ok?"

Eli gave a feeble nod, "Please, try not to take too long!" he said.

"Alright," Jenna said, giving him a forced smile "take care!"

"Goodbye Jenna" Kleiner called from below.

"Goodbye JENNA!" Alyx said, waving her hand at Jenna.

They parted ways, as Eli, Kleiner and Alyx ran one way, Jenna and Adrian ran the other way.


	15. Escape from Black Mesa

Eli and Isaac hollered at Barney waving their arms franticly: "BARNEY! BARNEY!"

Barney looked up and saw Eli with Alyx in his arms, and Dr. Kleiner running towards them.

"KLEINER? ELI? ALYX!" Barney yelled, running towards them, "What are you doing here? How did you get here?"

"We detected…. your teleport portal….. out here. Jenna and…. corporal Shepherd escorted us here" Kleiner responded, panting heavily from the running.

"Jenna?" Barney asked, "Where is she now?"

"She went back the other way because the Black Ops were sent to kill her. She wanted to draw attention away from us, so we could get out safely." Eli said, hanging his head.

Barney's heart shattered, he knew that Jenna probably gave up her life to save theirs. He felt even more guilty for their argument, knowing that he would probably never get a chance to apologize.

"Mister Calhoun? We must get going now!" Barney's companion Dr. Rosenberg said.

Barney sighed, got into the car, and drove off through the now opened entrance gate.

Jenna and Adrian ran back to the area where they left the three soldiers-battling black ops, aliens, and even a black op helicopter on the way. The journey took them about 30 minutes. Finally they came around a bend, and saw three black ops standing outside of a running black humvee.

"That'll be out best bet to get out of here," Jenna said.

Adrian nodded. They crawled closer to the black ops, close enough to hear their conversation.

"Forget about Freeman and Jenna, that bomb is set to go off any second. I'm getting outta here." One of them said,

"Yea, forget this, I'm not gonna be stuck here to die." Another said.

They all three started making their way to the cab, when Jenna and Adrian jumped out from around the corner and took all three out. They quickly jumped into the car, with Jenna in the driver's seat and Adrian in the passenger seat.

"The bomb is going to go off?" Jenna asked, "I thought you turned it off!"

"I DID!" said Adrian, "but that freak in the blue suit was messing with it, he must have turned it back on!"

"How can a suit possibly know how to operate a bomb?" Jenna responded.

"WHO CARES, let's just get the hell out of here!" Adrian half yelled.

"Alright, alright! You ride shotgun," Jenna said.

Adrian climbed half-way out of the car, sitting on the window. He shot at any aliens or stranded black ops trying to take out their truck. When the path looked cleared, Adrian got back into the cab.

"I think it's clear. Step on it!" he said.

Jenna pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. They raced across the desert, dodging housing units and black mesa equipment on the way. They finally reached the entrance gate from sector C. The gate was closed and locked, but Jenna drove straight through it, shattering it.

"WE MADE IT!" Adrian cried, "We honestly made it! I can't believe it! We're actually gonna…."

But Jenna looked in her rear view mirror, and saw a blinding light. She tried to squint, but the light was so blinding.

"OH MY GOD! THE BOMB!!!!" Adrian yelled "GO FASTER!!"

A shockwave followed when the light finally receded. Jenna pushed the pedal down hard, but it wouldn't go down any further.

"HOLD ON!!!" Jenna screamed to her companion. He braced himself, panic filled his face.

The shockwave finally hit their truck, sending it flying through the desert.

It finally crashed down onto the desert sand. There was a deafening noise, and then it went quiet.

She tried to open her eyes, but couldn't. All was dark again.

"Ja…Jenna" She heard Adrian whispered.

And then she heard nothing more.

Jenna woke up in a dark room. She was standing on….nothing. She tried to yell for Adrian, but she couldn't move her mouth. Suddenly, the man in the blue suit appeared out of a massive white light.

"Doctor Brandenburgh, we meeeet at lasssst" the man said, in a very strange voice.

"Was he even human?" Jenna wondered to herself.

"You have….exceeded even my wildest….expectationssss. You have proven to be _quite _a valuable….asssset and a strong…..adversary to those who do challenge you. You have managed to escape so much when many though you wouldn't make it. WELL DONE!" he said.

Jenna tried to yell at him, but nothing came out. She didn't even feel her face move in response.

"You and your colleague, Missster Shepherd have been very valuable to me and my…. Employers and in sssimilar fashion, you will prove quite useful in due time. But, in the meantime, you and Corporal Shepherd musssst be kept here so that no harm can come to you….and where you can do no harm to otherssss. When we need you again, I will let you…know."

And without another word, another doorway of light opened up next to him and he walked through it, disappearing out of sight.

And then all went black again.


	16. Barney's ending

Barney was driving down the New Mexico desert when his own SUV was hit by the shockwave. It shook the ground violently, scaring the scientists and toddler in the car. He didn't even stop; he just slowed down and straightened the car when the shaking ground pushed it around. They managed to escape the desert and get onto actual road. Barney decided to go west, towards California. Then he reached the center of Arizona, they had to stop for gas. Everyone chipped in the cash they had, so that no one could be tracked with a credit card. They drove on, throughout the night. Everyone in the car was sleeping- Walter Bennett, Simmons, and Kleiner were in the back seat, while Dr. Vance and Alyx were in the back in the cargo area. Rosenberg was in the passenger seat, sleeping as well. Barney drove on through the night, thinking about the days' events.

Suddenly, there was another great rumbling and a huge flash of light ripped through the sky, blinding Barney for a small moment. The other scientists and Alyx were woken by the rumbling.

"Oh my god!" Simmons whispered, looking back behind his shoulder.

Barney looked in the rear view mirror and saw what he was so shocked about. A huge, swirling portal was hanging way above the earth. It was emitting lightning (or what looked like it) and strange rumbling noises like thunder.

"What the hell is going on?" asked Barney, trying to look at the road and the sky at the same time.

"The dimensional rift…." Kleiner began, voice shaking, "it has….widened! But how could that happen? We aligned the satellite and the rocket and all of the other equipment perfectly!"

"Something else is opening it…." Eli said, holding his daughter close to him.

As they drove into a main city, they began to see the extent of the panic. People were packing into their vehicles and evacuating, but to where, Barney didn't know.

Barney decided to make his way to the closest military base. He thought that they might be caught and detained for being Black Mesa employees, but he decided that it would be better than just sitting around waiting for the rift to bring forth something awful.

They drove on alongside many other cars through desert and mountains. The sun looked like it was going to rise, until suddenly the earth was cast in an ominous darkness. It was all gray outside, like during a rainstorm but no rain fell.

Barney looked out of the window and saw that out of the huge swirling sky, a large shockwave spread over the desert, shaking the ground as they drove. Cars in front of Barney swerved and crashed into each other, but Barney just evaded them and drove on.

Suddenly, Alyx screamed. Large bullsquids and alien hounds began teleporting in on the sides of the road. Some of them ran into the road, causing more cars to crash or flip over when they tried to avoid them. A bullsquid ran in front of the SUV, but instead of avoiding it, Barney drove straight through it, sending its yellow alien blood spraying all over the windshield. The force of the hit dented the car, and the engine began to smoke lightly.

"Watch it, Calhoun, the car cannot take much more of that," Simmons said in the back.

"SURE!" Barney snapped, "Next time one of those things jumps in the way, we'll politely ask it to move."

Simmons became quiet, and was blushing from embarrassment. They reached a road sign read "Fort Irwin Army Base 45 miles"

Barney began to feel relieved. About 40 minutes later they reached the base, where many people were flocking for shelter among the aliens. The military was waving cars through to the living barracks, but Barney knew that the Black Mesa logo on the side of the SUV would cause them to become suspicious.

He, instead, pulled into an abandoned store parking lot right across the street from the back side of the base. He parked behind the store, out of sight. The town around the base was deserted, so Barney decided that they should jump the wall of the barracks and no one would see.

"Ok, here's what we're going to do. We have to take off any clothes or badges that label us as Black Mesa employees. We'll ditch the car here, go to the back side of the base, jump the wall into the base where the civilians have taken refuge. It's chaos on the base, and the military are more worried about the aliens and the people, so no one should see us if we do this right."

Barney ripped the black mesa patch off of his Kevlar vest and ditched his black mesa helmet altogether. The scientists ditched their lab coats and everyone took off their badges, which Barney felt weary about ditching, so he rolled them up into a lab coat and threw the whole thing into a sewer nearby. After ditching their black mesa gear, they walked around to the front of the store, and across the street to the back side of the base. He scaled the wall and looked over. They were right behind some apartment buildings, proving them with the perfect cover. He straddled the wall, positioning himself to help the scientists get over.

"Alright, Kleiner, you first"

Kleiner walked up to the wall, put his hands up and Barney grabbed him. He pulled the doctor over and lowered him to the other side.

"Simmons, you next" and simmons repeated.

"Rosenberg." Rosenberg was more agile and was actually able to sort of scale the wall, only needing slight help.

"Bennett"

Bennett began walking towards the wall when, suddenly, a bullsquid flanked by four face huggers teleported in out of nowhere about five yards away. They made their way towards the group. Barney half tossed Bennett over the wall, causing him to yell loudly in pain. Barney then jumped down and ran towards Eli and his small daughter. Barney knew he couldn't fire his weapon because it would draw attention to them sneaking into the base, so he quickly grabbed Alyx and ran towards the wall. He pushed her over, and called over to the scientists on the other side.

"Catch HER!" He yelled.

"I got her!" Rosenberg yelled. Alyx then jumped over the wall, out of sight. The bullsquid moved swiftly towards Eli and Barney. They ran towards the wall, but the bullsquid shot its acidy spit at Barney's left leg, causing him to feel searing pain. He hoisted himself up, and both men managed to scale the wall just in time before the bullsquid whipped around to smack them with its tail. Barney and Eli both fell over the wall, landing on their backs and they both continued to breathe heavily.

When they got up, the group quickly made their way to the civilian area. They blended in with the rest of the people, trying to act normally. Barney concealed his one last weapon in a pocket- his trusty pistol after having left all of the other weapons in the car.

They had sat there for hours while the military could be heard outside battling aliens as they teleported in. Suddenly, another shockwave came from the swirling sky, followed quickly by another. These shockwaves- which Kleiner was calling portal storms- continued every 20 minutes or so, shaking the ground and giving off a loud, high-pitched noise.

Everyone remained their overnight. The military continued to fight aliens who were teleporting in outside of the base and portal storms continued to sweep by like clockwork. No one was able to get to sleep, but still, everyone just sat there in silence, confused about what was going on.

Barney hoped that, somehow, Jenna was still alive. He reached into his pocket and pulled out her necklace. He frowned, looking at it intently before shoving it back into his pocket. A few hours later, late into the night, the military got some ear plugs and began passing them out to everyone to shield the loud sound of the portal storms. The military them came around with blankets and sleeping bags, and the group was able to finally get some sleep.

After sleeping for only about 2 hours, Barney was jolted awake. But, much to his dismay, he was in total darkness. He tried calling out for the others in his group, but he couldn't talk. A bright light suddenly appeared, and a familiar man stepped out of it. It was a man in a blue suit. Barney had seen him on security cameras a few times during the week before the incident, but he figured it was just some government guy.

"Missster Calhoun, you are quite the difficult man to get….a hold of" the man said, in a strange, jumpy voice.

"I am quite….impressssed with your abilities to evade every obstacle and every pursuer who was looking to….detain you- myself included."

"Every pursuer?" Barney thought to himself, "who else was pursuing me?"

"Quite a few of your….friends have managed similar feats- Miss Brandenburgh, Mr. Freeman, Mr. Vance- you and your colleagues are quite a tessstament to the idea of fight or flight."

"Jenna escaped?" Barney thought to himself. He was flooded with a sense of relief.

"Now, despite the fact that you have proven yourself a worthy competitor in combat, I…regret to inform you that… for a time, you musssst be kept away from the coming battle, for your own safety.

"I know that you must be quite confused, and I do apologize for being….vague in my details, but jussst know that I could not risssk losing you when you are much too important for….our upcoming plans…"

The man gave Barney a grotesque smile.

"Until then, enjoy your much deserved ressssst."

The man disappeared from view, and all was black again.

**WELL folks, that's all for this part. Any and all reviews are MUCH appreciated, so review NOW! : ) Thanks to everyone who read and submitted reviews. I hope I did everyone justice and didn't waste your time. **

**I am working on a post-combine story for the Jenna and Barney monologues, but am experiencing a lot of plot gaps (my ideas kind of jump around in time a lot). If you want, you can post your ideas as a review or in a message to me and it might get my creative juices flowing again! **

**Soooo, ya. I will probably have at least a part of the second story up soon, so look out! **


	17. UPDATE! PLEASE READ

**Hey Everyone! **

**To the fans of this story, I would like to encourage you to read a preview for the second part of the story arc- it takes place along the lines of half-life 2- It still follows my first story, "Barney, the HECU, and the Black Mesa Incident but in the post-combine era. **

**Here is a link: **

**.net/s/5063370/1/Fixing_the_teleporter**

**I wanted to put this up to see if readers like my writing style and think that I'm doing half-life 2 justice. Leave any suggestions/critiques/ideas/hate mail in the form of comments and reviews on the new story!**

**Also, if you want to contribute plot ideas for the part 2 portion of this story line (Jenna x Barney, Jenna in the combine world, etc.), please leave me comments/reviews and/or message me and I will include credits to you if I use your ideas. (Cuz I'm not a plagiarizer!) **

**I'm really torn about two things: **

**Whether or not to even continue with this story line**

**What the hell this story should include (plot)**

**SO PLEASE, PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!! **


End file.
